Caughman Named Interim Director of Health Sciences Center

By Michelle Boone

Wright Caughman can diagnose a melanoma or diagram a sentence with equal precision. The newly appointed interim executive vice president for health affairs, CEO of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center (WHSC), and chair of Emory Healthcare is a dermatologist by training, but he began his career as a high school English teacher in his hometown of Columbia, South Carolina.

A graduate of Davidson College, Caughman left teaching to pursue a degree at the Medical University of South Carolina. He completed his residency at Harvard Medical School, where he served as chief resident in dermatology. After serving as medical officer and principal investigator in the dermatology branch of the National Cancer Institute, Caughman moved his family to Atlanta and joined the Emory faculty in 1990.

In the past two decades, he has served Emory as chair of the Department of Dermatology, director of The Emory Clinic, and vice president for clinical and academic integration, in addition to his duties as a physician and a researcher.

“I’ve had the good fortune to experience WHSC from many different perspectives—physician, educator, researcher, and administrator—and to work alongside some of the most talented and dedicated people I’ve ever known,” Caughman says. “The amount I’ve learned from my colleagues, students, and patients over the past twenty years is humbling, and I’m still learning every day.”