Cash-strapped Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science was in critical financial condition last year, at risk of seizure by its lenders.
In the last few months, however, officials at the campus in the Willowbrook neighborhood, just south of Watts, say there’s cause for optimism. The university has pulled back from the brink of insolvency and is close to selecting a new president.
The final candidate is Dr. David M. Carlisle, 56, director of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. In that post, he has overseen the analysis of healthcare data and the monitoring of seismic safety at hospitals since 2000.
Carlisle has strong roots in L.A.: He spent part of his childhood in Baldwin Hills, where his mother still lives; he did his medical residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center; he received a doctorate in public health at UCLA; and he was a professor of medicine at UCLA between 1992 and 2000.
