{"id":317897,"date":"2025-10-20T06:21:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T06:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/317897\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T06:21:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T06:21:22","slug":"ceo-oversees-utah-health-care-system-and-does-brain-surgeries-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/317897\/","title":{"rendered":"CEO oversees Utah health care system and does brain surgeries \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published: Oct 19, 2025, 9:00 p.m. MDT<\/p>\n

The patient is asleep, lying face down on an operating table in OR2 at the University of Utah\u2019s Clinical Neurosciences Center, surrounded by a dozen people who do their jobs with swift efficiency, whether monitoring vital signs or guiding an implement to peel away scar tissue or regulating the cocktail of medication that keeps the patient under.<\/p>\n

The overhead lights switch from white to green as the operation progresses, a single white light outlining only the area where the brain is exposed. Everything else by design fades into the green background.<\/p>\n

For the next several hours, the neurosurgeon and his team focus solely on the patient\u2019s well-being, removing a tumor that\u2019s small but will grow dangerously if it\u2019s left alone.<\/p>\n

This is not the patient\u2019s first brain surgery. They are removing a recurrent tumor.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not the neurosurgeon\u2019s first brain surgery, either. Dr. Bob Carter estimates he\u2019s done about 5,000 in his career. And he plans to do about 50 this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Bob Carter, chief executive officer of University of Utah Health and executive vice president of University of Utah Health Sciences, works with his surgical team to remove a brain tumor from a patient in Salt Lake City on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News <\/p>\n

Carter is generous with his knowledge, a natural teacher. He mentions the book \u201cFlow,\u201d which describes the almost-magical feeling when everything clicks. The subtitle \u201cPsychology of Optimal Experience\u201d is what Carter finds as he operates: Neurosurgery has a rhythm and a very specific goal. That intense but comfortable focus will serve this patient well.<\/p>\n

After the early morning surgery, when the patient is on the way to recovery and the family has received an update, Carter will remove the surgical mask and blue gloves and scrubs. He\u2019ll probably replace them with dress pants and a nice shirt, though sometimes he wears a suit, depending on the day\u2019s calendar.<\/p>\n

Neurosurgeon is not his only job.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bob S. Carter, CEO of University of Utah Health and executive vice president for health sciences, recognizes faculty award recipients during commencement at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 1, 2025. | Tess Crowley, Deseret News <\/p>\n

In late 2024, Carter was named executive vice president for health sciences for the University of Utah and CEO of the entire U Health system \u2014 all five hospitals and 12 community health centers and five medical education colleges. His purview extends to a $5 billion clinical enterprise with a $500 million research portfolio, a health sciences library, oversight of about 27,000 faculty and staff and the education of 6,400 students.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s going to have a long, very busy day.<\/p>\n

The journey\u2019s start <\/p>\n

This month, Carter was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine. It\u2019s an honor bestowed by election for outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. For some, that\u2019s a crowning achievement in a medical career, but Carter\u2019s career has been anything but a straight trajectory, and he\u2019s just months into a new adventure.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Bob Carter poses for photos in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News <\/p>\n

While he\u2019s never worked in Utah before, the Beehive State is an important part of his history. He was born at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo in the early \u201860s into a family that would eventually grow to include eight younger siblings. When he was 4, the Carters moved to Ohio, and Utah was relegated to episodic memories of visits with relatives. His grandfather owned a dairy farm, now long gone, near Utah Lake. As a teen, he figured he might come back for college at Brigham Young University \u2014 and he did, courtesy of scholarships and working janitorial shifts.<\/p>\n

Carter met his future bride, Jennifer Lewis, at Laval University in Quebec City, a pair of BYU students who\u2019d never bumped into each other on the Provo campus, but instead found each other during a six-week French language program. <\/p>\n

He completed college in three years, plowing through year-round to finish fast, but she got ahead of him when he left to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Paris. When he returned, she was starting a graduate school program. They wed in his senior year, and he finished his bachelor\u2019s degree in chemistry in 1986.<\/p>\n

In a speech at the BYU graduation ceremony where he represented the class, Carter called learning a way to overcome life\u2019s frustrations. \u201cIt offers new perspectives into difficult challenges and those perspectives allow us to pursue solutions to our problems along avenues we would have never guessed to explore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A young Bob Carter speaks for the Class of 1986 during a BYU graduation ceremony. | Carter family photo <\/p>\n

His career trajectory would later prove his point.<\/p>\n

Medical school was his goal, and he was accepted to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, so that summer, the couple packed up the little 1978 Toyota Corolla the previous owner had spray painted gray and they drove across the country, arriving at a hot, muggy city that was nothing like Utah or Ohio. \u201cIt was inner city and gritty and it had a flavor of vibrancy and energy, but also was just almost a shock of \u2018Wow. This is a big city,\u2019\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n

The Carters loved it.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Carter finished her coursework at Johns Hopkins to earn her BYU master\u2019s degree, and her husband started both medical school and an epidemiology program, emerging with medical and doctorate degrees. He planned to be a urologist. During the medical program, which included both medical studies and lab work and took him six years to complete, Carter was part of a research team that first characterized a form of inherited prostate cancer. That turned out to be a very big deal. Friends said that even early on, he was clearly exceptional.<\/p>\n

He was also being mentored by an incredibly well-respected urologist, Dr. Patrick Walsh, and his path forward seemed both set and exciting. <\/p>\n

But Carter was open to emerging adventures. Pivoting in unexpected directions would prove to be a major part of his skill set.<\/p>\n

Choosing a different road<\/p>\n

Change started with a series of monthlong programs called externships at different hospitals during his final year of medical school. It was \u201cincredibly late\u201d in his medical education when he did one in neurosurgery, but that first day, his calling found him.<\/p>\n

Carter was in the operating room to watch a neurosurgical team remove a benign tumor from the base of a patient\u2019s skull, where it pressed on the brain stem. Unexpectedly, a resident who was going to assist was called away, and the surgeon invited Carter to join the inner circle at the operating table. <\/p>\n

It was an unheard-of opportunity for a student and a life-changing moment. The surgeon noted he was good with his hands. Carter was hooked.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Bob Carter, chief executive officer of University of Utah Health and executive vice president of University of Utah for health sciences, and his team begin surgery to remove a tumor from a patient in Salt Lake City on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still so vivid in my mind, the beautiful anatomy, seeing the brain stem, the spinal fluid. There\u2019s a little inside saying among neurosurgeons. We call spinal fluid the champagne of body fluids. It\u2019s just really so beautiful, so clear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Carter stayed an extra month, doing another externship before applying for a neurosurgery residency. He was eager to embark on the seven-year journey to become a neurosurgeon.<\/p>\n

The juggling act<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that Bob and Jennifer Carter experienced the early days of parenthood a bit differently, though they both loved it. Carter, to this day, tells students not to hesitate to start a family while they\u2019re training to be doctors. It\u2019s too important and it\u2019s not practical to put off life for \u201csomeday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you put off everything until you\u2019re done and it\u2019s all perfect, you might have regrets about not being invested in family along the way,\u201d he\u2019ll say.<\/p>\n

Jennifer\u2019s response is both wry and good-natured: \u201cHe had an awesome wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

During medical school, being a parent was more straightforward, she said. But Carter did his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in an era when resident hours had not yet been limited and they were very, very long. Every third night, he was away, on call at the hospital. The two nights between, he often got home after 8 p.m.; the kids were already in bed. His morning shifts arrived before they\u2019d begun to stir. There were stretches where he didn\u2019t see the kids during residency. <\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Bob Carter, chief executive officer of University of Utah Health and executive vice president of University of Utah for health sciences, scrubs up prior to surgery to remove a tumor from a patient in Salt Lake City, on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News <\/p>\n

His wife said she had a supportive network of friends and family that made it doable, if not always easy. Plus, in the middle of the neurosurgery residency in Boston, residents are allowed two research years, and those years were better for family time. He did his research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but had a more reasonable schedule to spend time with his family, which by then included four kids.<\/p>\n

He was a natural as a dad, she said, while she had to learn to be a mom on the job. The oldest of nine, Carter grew up with younger kids and babies. She was the only girl in her family and one of the youngest. \u201cI felt like from the start he was more comfortable with newborns and kids. He was often the one sleeping on the couch, holding the baby, getting up in the middle of the night to help out. When he was around, he was very hands on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their children \u2014 Laura Tengelsen, Jessica Winfield, Alyson Bullock, Ethan Carter and David Carter \u2014 are now adults themselves, some with kids of their own, scattered across the country. They\u2019re ages 22 to 36.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bob and Jennifer Carter and their family in Austin, Texas, when he was the honored guest at the Congress of Neurological Surgery annual meeting. | Narrative Images via the Carter family <\/p>\n

Those training days were a whirlwind of obligations, but Carter let nothing slide. Besides learning to be a surgeon, he served in his church\u2019s bishopric in Baltimore and later did a five-year stint as bishop of a ward for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Belmont, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

Family time, while not very abundant, was always important. When they could, they camped and hiked in the early years when they didn\u2019t have a lot of disposable income. As he earned more, they sometimes rented a house at the beach instead. Eventually, they were doing well enough for annual ski trips.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, she\u2019d worked as a linguist for the National Security Agency, but cut her hours as her family grew. Eventually, she opted to stay home with the kids.<\/p>\n

While he was at MIT, Carter studied gene transfer and cell transfer therapy for brain cancer. He helped devise one of the first engineered T cells to create an immune response to brain tumors.<\/p>\n

He calls that his \u201csecond medical first.\u201d The first, of course, was the familial prostate cancer discovery.<\/p>\n

So life was bouncing along, the family happy in Massachusetts. He was working long hours, but also prioritizing family and church and a growing group of close and loyal friends. <\/p>\n

\"\"Jennifer and Bob Carter goofing off in the Dolomites in South Tyrol, Italy. | Carter family photo A ringing phone and another pivot<\/p>\n

Medicine has two paths: academic or private practice, Jennifer Carter said. Private practice generates more money and that\u2019s where most medical students go, but her husband chose academic medicine. She didn\u2019t understand the choice at the time, \u201cbut it\u2019s actually been amazing because you\u2019re involved with the research, you\u2019re always at institutions that are doing the most innovative work.\u201c He was teaching, researching and practicing in a career that would include Harvard University and Massachusetts General, among others. <\/p>\n

The family was thriving.<\/p>\n

Then the phone rang \u2014 another pattern as his reputation grew. <\/p>\n

University of California San Diego was looking for a division chief. Would Carter consider applying?<\/p>\n

Jennifer didn\u2019t want to leave Massachusetts. She\u2019d mostly lived on the eastern seaboard since age 12. They had family and friends there. It was comfortable. Their kids were doing well in school, had friends and were active in their Latter-day Saint ward.<\/p>\n

But Carter was always up for a challenge and they decided to go for it. Later, she would be sad to leave San Diego. They stayed in California, a place he describes as \u201cmagical,\u201d for seven years. Besides his gift for neurosurgery and managing a department, they had a shared gift for making friends, building community and finding meaning outside of work.<\/p>\n

Carter said nothing short of being neurosurgery department chair at Mass General could lure him away. Then the phone rang again. That job had become available. <\/p>\n

Carter had the day\u2019s last interview, and as he headed for the airport, he figured it had gone pretty well. At the departure gate to head home, he learned just how well. The group making the selection had planned two or three rounds of interviews, winnowing choices, but an informal poll after the day\u2019s interviews showed they all liked Carter. He was invited to \u201ccome back in a week or two to see if he could be the one.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then, Jennifer Carter had settled into the warm weather and delights of Southern California. \u201cI have to give a huge shout out to my wife,\u201d Carter said, noting she\u2019d changed directions a lot for the sake of family. Over the years, she\u2019s packed and unpacked and packed and unpacked, shifting kids and priorities as his career blossomed.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Bob Carter and his wife, Jennifer Carter, pose for photos in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News <\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of my success was being able to have our family have stability,\u201d Carter said. That stability\u2019s name was Jennifer Carter.<\/p>\n

Still, it was Massachusetts. They had friends there and it was quite the coup to be part of a neurosurgery program that was nearly 100 years old. \u201cIt was a place where a neurosurgeon could do so many exciting things,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n

The brain surgeons were changing lives in real time but also for the future of later patients and medicine itself. Back at Mass General, he was part of a team creating a cell therapy for Parkinson\u2019s disease by taking a patient\u2019s skin cell and growing it to become a stem cell. From there, they made it into a dopamine-producing neuron. Besides the incredible scientific discovery itself, they raised millions of dollars and came up with a way to produce the cells. In 2018, they did the first implant. Two years later they published what they\u2019d learned from that patient, the first treated with their own autologous dopaminergic neurons. <\/p>\n

\u201cIncredibly exciting and the reason I was at a place like Mass General,\u201d Carter said. <\/p>\n

What they developed didn\u2019t cure Parkinson\u2019s, but the patient is alive and doing well and back to activities like swimming that had seemed lost forever.<\/p>\n

His star was still rising in the field of neurosurgery. When Mass General and Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital combined, collapsing two of each department into one, Carter was named head of the combined neurosurgery department, possibly the largest anywhere, with close to 100 neurosurgeons doing a total of roughly 10,000 surgeries a year.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Bob Carter, chief executive officer of University of Utah Health and executive vice president of University of Utah for health sciences, points out a brain tumor on a scan as he prepares for surgery to remove it from a patient in Salt Lake City on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News Embracing new challenges<\/p>\n

But Carter was restless in a want-to-grow way, and had begun to wonder if he could make a different impact. He had worked with \u201ctremendous medical center leaders\u201d over the years, he said. He wondered if he\u2019d like to be one. <\/p>\n

Between San Diego and Boston, he has chaired a department for 15 years. \u201cI could do it in my sleep. I want a new challenge,\u201d he confided to his wife. \u201cI\u2019ve always wondered what it would be like to be CEO.\u201d Jennifer said that while he craved personal and professional growth, she was wondering why they would leave friends, a home they loved and a job that\u2019s possibly the most prestigious in the country for a neurosurgeon.<\/p>\n

Even Carter thought it was an odd notion. He loved Mass General Brigham and they had a great life in Massachusetts. Plus, moves take a lot of work \u2014 and they get bigger the older you get, he later said.<\/p>\n

But he couldn\u2019t get the opportunity to lead health endeavors at the University of Utah out of his head \u2014 the chance to mentor and teach and help shape a health system\u2019s entire course. He loved university President Taylor Randall\u2019s vision for growth and wanted to see what the school could accomplish.<\/p>\n

\"\"Taylor Randall, University of Utah president, talks with the Deseret News editorial board at the Deseret News office in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Dr. Bob Carter, University of Utah Health CEO and executive vice president for health sciences, is next to him. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News <\/p>\n

He also pondered something the dean in San Diego said back when he was being recruited years ago. The man said being in San Diego taught him a lot about waves and oceans and surfing. \u201cThe best time to catch a wave is well before it\u2019s cresting,\u201d he told Carter. \u201cIt\u2019s just when you see it start to rise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter thought about that a lot over the years. Utah felt like a place \u201cwhere we could catch a wave and do something special over the next many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going to the University of Utah would surprise a lot of friends, though. People joke that Carter was perhaps the truest of true blue, since he and his wife, as well as all five of their children and their spouses, went to BYU. He just smiles when asked what it\u2019s like to switch colors and be at rival Utah. Ever the diplomat, he declined to say who he\u2019d be cheering for whenever Utah and BYU meet on the football field.<\/p>\n

But he points out that blood is blue when it enters the heart. When it leaves, it\u2019s red. Both parts of the journey are essential.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Bob Carter, chief executive officer of University of Utah Health and executive vice president of University of Utah for health sciences, enters the operating room after scrubbing prior to surgery to remove a tumor from a patient in Salt Lake City on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News <\/p>\n

He said Jennifer was a bit shocked when he applied, but Utah also had a few draws that amplified the appeal: They have a daughter and two granddaughters who live in Holladay. And their youngest son, David, is a pre-med student in his sophomore year at BYU.<\/p>\n

Friends for life<\/p>\n

Among Carter\u2019s gifts are friendships, many of which stretch back decades. Dr. Mark Ott, the newly appointed inaugural dean of the BYU School of Medicine<\/a>, was a resident at Johns Hopkins when Carter was a medical student. They had an incredible amount in common, including growing families with children of similar ages \u2014 eventually five children each \u2014 and a shared Latter-day Saint faith. Jennifer Carter and Emily Ott became dear friends. And as their careers sent them to different locations, the men stayed close, offering each other encouragement and serving as sounding boards.<\/p>\n

At the time Carter matched in neurosurgery in Boston, Ott had taken his first real surgeon\u2019s job there. The two families spent a lot of time together. <\/p>\n

Eventually, Ott moved to Utah to be chief of surgery at LDS Hospital and later went to Intermountain Medical Center. Ott did surgical oncology and served in administrative and educational roles for Intermountain for more than 20 years. It was natural to ask his opinion as Carter contemplated a job in Utah.<\/p>\n

While his new job added administrative roles, Carter has never given up surgery. Ott said his friend was \u201cborn to perform the extremely delicate and complicated neurovascular subspeciality of neurosurgery.\u201d <\/p>\n

He describes Carter as \u201cbrilliant, an incredible surgeon and a good person. He\u2019s just very good through and through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ott also admires his friend\u2019s good humor, describing him as \u201cvery funny.\u201d Adds Ott, \u201cHe would do anything for anybody that he could possibly help.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Jennifer Carter is just as accomplished, Ott said. \u201cShe made him even better than he could have been without her. She\u2019s a humble, quiet person but gets a lot of credit for Bob\u2019s success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Steven Kalkanis is now CEO of Henry Ford Hospital and Medical Group in Detroit. He\u2019s another old friend. When he was training at Mass General back in the day, Carter was his chief resident, and their careers have been quite similar in the quarter-century they\u2019ve been good friends.<\/p>\n

Kalkanis said Carter is successful because his guiding focus has always been patient care. He credits Carter with teaching him to listen to the patient, No. 1, \u201cdespite what the radiographic films, the lab studies and the textbooks may tell you at the end of the day.\u201c <\/p>\n

He noted that \u201cnothing takes the place of being able to walk into a waiting room at the end of a big surgery and look a family member in the eye and say, \u2018We got it,\u2019 or \u2018We fixed it.\u2019 That is Bob\u2019s touchstone and that gives him enormous credibility with physicians, with colleagues, with nurses, with peers, with patients, with families.\u201d <\/p>\n

And, Kalkanis adds, \u201cHe\u2019s the real deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Bob Carter, chief executive officer of University of Utah Health and executive vice president of University of Utah for health sciences, works with his team to perform surgery to remove a brain tumor from a patient in Salt Lake City on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News <\/p>\n

What he isn\u2019t, several people asked about Carter volunteered without prompting, is arrogant. \u201cBob was always sort of surprising and delighting people with just how thoughtful, with just how collaborative and inclusive he is,\u201d Kalkanis said.<\/p>\n

In the field of neurosurgery, Kalkanis said, Carter has \u201calways been ahead of the curve. And Bob is one of the few people in the universe I trust with the most important decisions I have to make personally, professionally.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also admires the Carters\u2019 large and close-knit family and how they show up for each other. \u201cI learned from him in that regard as well,\u201d Kalkanis said.<\/p>\n

A vision for U Health <\/p>\n

Carter admits he didn\u2019t realize in his younger years \u201cwhat an incredible graduate medical center the U. has. It\u2019s really an amazing place to get exposure to the health sciences.\u201d<\/p>\n

His role overseeing it all \u2014 including the schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing and pharmacy, as well as the College of Health \u2014 is quite unusual. Not to mention overseeing the hospital, the Huntsman Cancer Institute, the Nielsen Rehabilitation Hospital, Huntsman Mental Health Institute, University Hospital and all the rest of it, on campus and off.<\/p>\n

\"\"CEO of University of Utah Health Bob Carter addresses University of Utah School of Medicine students before they open their match envelopes to find out where they will live and work for the next few years while completing their residencies, at the University of Utah Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Friday, March 21, 2025. | Tess Crowley, Deseret News <\/p>\n

When Randall and the search committee tapped Carter to replace Dr. Michael Good, Carter was an endowed professor of neuroscience at Harvard Medical Center and \u201cNeurosurgeon in Chief\u201d at Mass General Brigham. Besides \u201ctraining carers and providing care,\u201d he sees the health system he\u2019s over as a place where people can learn and have professional and personal advancement, not to mention economic mobility \u2014 \u201cso a real driver of positive change.\u201d And he\u2019s talking about all levels of staff.<\/p>\n

Carter is also forming partnerships within departments, such as the neurosurgery collaboration with the engineering department and a tech company called Blackrock Neurotech. Engineers created the Utah Array, a set of electrodes that can be implanted on the surface of the brain. The invention was spun off into the tech company. The array underpins work with patients who are paralyzed or have a neurological condition like ALS. <\/p>\n

Combining different specialties can give people disabled by disease \u201cthe chance to control their environment just by thinking: Turn off the light switch, turn up the music, write an email \u2014 life-enhancing activity that results from a collaboration between rehab specialists, neurosurgeons, engineers and others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an ecosystem where we can put these different parts together and create real value for new therapies and new ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the few months since he arrived at Utah, Carter has done some reorganizing and created new leadership roles. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a big vision, and it\u2019s been fun and exciting to do every day, to get up and be energized. I look forward to coming to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jennifer Carter said her husband\u2019s style is to let people do their jobs. He doesn\u2019t micromanage. Carter\u2019s wife and kids are all familiar with what he dubs the \u201cE to P ratio.\u201d It\u2019s a lighthearted way for the family to remember to avoid an ego that\u2019s more outsized than the actual performance merits. <\/p>\n

Per Jennifer Carter, Carter\u2019s own E to P ratio is healthy. He\u2019s not overly impressed with himself and values that quality in others. \u201cHe\u2019s down to earth, friendly, a genuinely nice, humble guy,\u201d said his wife of 40 years.<\/p>\n

Randall told the Deseret News the school was looking for a \u201cvisionary that knew the unique place of a health care system attached to a research one university and Carter\u2019s background, his extraordinary excellence in both care of patients and his field and the research and education that he did at Harvard just really stood out to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Bob Carter, University of Utah Health CEO and executive vice president for health sciences, talks with the Deseret News editorial board at the Deseret News office in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Taylor Randall, University of Utah president, and Mitzi M. Montoya, University of Utah provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, are next to him. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News <\/p>\n

\u201cThe great thing about being in the job that I\u2019m now in is that you see the whole scale of the medical enterprise and you can think about the strategic investments you want to make and how you can have impact at scale in a community like Utah or a nation,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n

The two men work very closely, and Randall describes Carter as collaborative and innovative by nature, \u201cso if you\u2019re trying to create something, he\u2019s someone you always listen to. Too often our roles are problem-solving and what I find is he\u2019s extraordinarily creative and always looking to grow the pie. I think the word these days is generative,\u201d Randall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is one of the most interesting, inspirational individuals I\u2019ve ever had the opportunity to work with,\u201d Carter\u2019s new boss said, \u201cand I\u2019m really excited to see how his leadership leads this university, our medical school and the University of Utah health care system in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: Oct 19, 2025, 9:00 p.m. MDT The patient is asleep, lying face down on an operating table…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":317898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,974,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-317897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-news-feed-national","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}