Retchin to serve in newly created VCU Health System

By Erin Lucero
Office of Development, School of Medicine

RICHMOND, Va. – Sheldon Michael Retchin, M.D., M.S.P.H., has been named executive vice president of the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System. Retchin will have responsibility for overseeing the clinical enterprise for the newly created health system that consolidates all clinical functions at the university and its teaching hospital.

A national expert in health policy and health-care delivery, Retchin has been principal or co-principal investigator for over $9.6 million in sponsored research funding since 1986. He has served on numerous national panels related to managed care, costs of care and consumer surveys regarding health care.

Among other appointments, he has served on an advisory panel that furnishes advice and counsel for the American Association of Medical Colleges on a variety of clinical issues concerning medical schools. In addition, Retchin has been a technical advisor for Medicare’s Consumer Assessment of Health Plans’ study, directed by Harvard University, and is a frequent consultant on health-care policies for the Health Care Financing Administration and other federal agencies.

Retchin has published numerous articles, monographs, books and book chapters on the costs, quality and outcomes of care in the Medicare program, as well as in clinical geriatrics. His publications have appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Academic Medicine, Journal of the National Cancer Institute and the Archives of Internal Medicine, among others. Retchin was elected Fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1985.

A professor of internal medicine, gerontology and health administration at VCU’s School of Medicine, Retchin has served since 1993 as president of the faculty practice plan for physicians at VCU’s Medical College of Virginia Hospitals. He also previously held the post as associate vice president for clinical enterprise at VCU.

Retchin is a triple graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, having earned a bachelor’s degree in 1972 from the university, a medical degree in 1976 and a master’s degree in public health in 1982.

A native of Wilmington, N.C., Retchin is a 1968 graduate of New Hanover High School, where he served as senior class president. Retchin’s parents, Daniel and Pearl Retchin, still reside in Wilmington, where they own Carolina Furniture Co., a fourth-generation family business.

Retchin and his wife, Tracy, have 3 children: Sarah, age 8, and identical twin boys, Michael and Matthew, age 3.