"In our work with clients, we try to support and facilitate change in their institution. This doesn't mean providing them with a blueprint or step-by-step instruction manual. Rather, our job is more often about bringing together multiple stakeholders around an objective view of their environment they are working in, and collaborating with them to co-develop options and the means to reach their goals. Education and coaching are essential to the growth and development of individuals; organizations are no different. PHMI tries to address both in its work: help create sustainable organizations and fulfilling careers."
Dr. Aretz is a member of the PHMI's senior management team focusing largely on academic programs and institutions, such as universities, medical schools and academic medical centers.
A native of Germany, Dr. Aretz has been in the academic practice of cardiovascular pathology since 1981. He was the course director of a major integrated medical school course at Harvard from 1992 to 2005. He is a Program Director for the Harvard Macy Institute, and has been involved in international programs since 1996. He holds a clinical appointment at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where he completed his post-doctoral training. He has served on many academic and hospital (IRB chairman) committees and industrial boards, and is the co-founder of three medical technology companies. He received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and is certified in anatomic and clinical pathology by the American Board of Pathology.
Dr. Aretz has lectured and published extensively and has received multiple teaching awards at Harvard Medical School and MGH. He has also won recognition for his efforts to improve medical education around the world through intra-institutional collaborations. In 2006 he was named an "Ehrenbürger" (honorary citizen) of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich for his contributions to the long-standing PHMI-LMU alliance. Recently he was recognized with a MILES Award (Mentoring, Innovation, and Leadership in Educational Scholarship), given by the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore for outstanding contributions to the advancement of global medical education and academic medicine.