Dr. Michael Para has been elected chief of medical staff at Ohio State medical center.Para, a member of the medical team at Ohio State since 1981 who has served on many committees in both the medical and university areas, now looks forward to acting as the liaison between the hospital board of trustees and the physicians.”I look forward to bringing the perspective of the physicians and better service to the board and also bringing the hospital board’s perspective to the doctors. Things need to go from the board to the doctors and vice versa,” Para said.A professor in the department of internal medicine and department of molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics, Para served as president of College of Medicine and Public Health faculty from 1997 to 1999. Other areas of the medical profession that Para is actively involved with are teaching, researching, and practicing medicine. As chief of medical staff he will be incorporating the business aspect of the medical world into his workload. He plans to continue teaching, researching and serving patients while acting as chief of staff. Para said he will have to put his time management skills to use during his three year term.”I hope to take something away from this position, you go to the meetings and see that the board has clear objectives and decisions are made by the end of the meeting. This will help me to be more efficient,” Para said.Para graduated in 1974 from University College of Medicine and as chief of medical staff he hopes to pass along information from the board of trustees to the students that was not available to him as a student. Para said passing along business information such as how to improve customer satisfaction to students would “open a realm of the medical profession that usually isn’t touched upon in education.”As an infectious disease physician, Para is involved with efforts to help people with HIV and AIDS in the community and state health department programs. Para has won several awards for his HIV and AIDS research including an Alumni Achievement from OSU’s College of Medicine and Public Health, the AIDS Leadership Award from the Ohio Department of Health, a community service award from the Columbus Medical Association and the President’s Award from the Columbus AIDS Task Force.