Dr. Holly Danneman, associate dean of UK medical college at NKU, the right leader at the right time

By Judy Clabes
NKyTribune editor

The University of Kentucky College of Medicine/NKU is part of a grand plan to expand opportunities for the state’s land grant flagship to turn out more doctors to serve the state. NKU is the third regional medical center in the plan. It started in 2019 with an inaugural class of 35 students and recently graduated its second class.

Other regional four-year medical schools are the Rural Physician Leadership Program based in Morehead and the UK College of Medicine-Bowling Green.

To say that the great plan is working would be an understatement. But a great plan must have the right leadership behind it, and in NKY that would be Holly G. Danneman, M.D., whose title is Associate Dean.

She reports directly to the Dean of the UK College of Medicine as do the other two leaders of the regional campuses.

Dr. Danneman has credentials a mile long – and an engaging leadership style, a dynamic personality, and a love for the NKY community that far outdistances those impressive credentials.

“Northern Kentucky is home,” she says, and indeed she was born and raised here – and she and her husband, Jim, are raising their own family here too. Make that two sets of twins plus two – for six.

Danneman was named head of the med school in March, 2023, its second. She was involved with the school since its inception and was serving as assistant dean when Steven Haist retired.

She was more than ready to step into the leadership role.

She grew up in health care, literally. Her dad was an emergency room nurse at St. Elizabeth, so Danneman always had her eye on medicine as a career. She graduated from Notre Dame Academy, got a (magna cum laude) undergraduate degree in natural science from Xavier, and graduated with distinction from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in Lexington.

She came back to Northern Kentucky for her residency in family medicine at St. Elizabeth Hospital, then worked in the St Elizabeth Emergency Department for 14 years and as a hospitalist there for two more years – and now she’s in “academic medicine” as head of NKY’s amazing medical school.

As devoted as she is to family medicine, Danneman feels she now has the “dream job” she has been working toward all her career – playing a role in shaping next generations of doctors.

“You have to truly know your trade,” she says, “to not only treat patients but also teach the next generation.”

She is a teaching dean – teaching first year medical students introduction to clinical medicine and second year students advanced clinical medicine. And, still today, she spends a half day a week at St. Elizabeth Hospital with resident physicians there.

In addition, her duties include faculty development, overseeing student advising, working with a growing body of community partners, leading a staff of 15, and maintaining relationships with over 400 physicians who have been “appointed” as faculty to the college. Those physicians, she says, “keep the students on their A game.”

She also maintains a close working relationship with St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Northern Kentucky University, two organizations that collaborated with UK to establish the regional campas.

“I’m honored to play a role in helping UK College of Medicine train future doctors to care for patients in my hometown and the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Danneman said when she was named associate dean. “I don’t know how it could get much better than that.”

As a faculty member, Danneman executed the development of Compassionate Care Reaching yoU (CCRU), a free, Northern Kentucky Campus student-run clinic which provides free services at a local homeless shelter and is now expanding those free services at Florence Christian Church. Today, the students see hundreds of “guests” – and are learning first-hard how to put “values in mission.” The students, she said, have “significant autonomy” when it comes to the free clinics.

“Everyone involved in this is winning,” she said. “The community wins because the students have a heart for underserved care and the guests benefit because the students meet them where they are.”

Danneman says the school is definitely drawing local students – and, so far, most of them are leaning toward “primary care.”

“We want to show NKY that we want to be part of NKY,” she said, “and that, as part of NKY, we want to make things better. . .I see so much hope in these young people – they identify a need and want to be part of the solution – part of fixing the problem.”

Students really do follow good leaders, and the students at the UK College of Medicine/NKU couldn’t ask for a more genuine and committed leader than Dr. Holly Danneman.

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