On Thursday, November 12, 2026, Robert G. Sawyer, MD, will celebrate two significant milestones – one personal, the other professional.
That day will mark his 65th birthday. It’s also the day he will officially retire after nearly a decade as a physician, educator, and senior leader at WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed).
“It seemed very logical somehow,” Dr. Sawyer said recently. “I’ve done a lot of the stuff I really wanted to do and I have some new grandkids and it was time to spend a little more time with my family.”
Dr. Sawyer joined WMed in 2017 as chair of the Department of Surgery and was later appointed senior associate dean for Research in October 2023, a role that afforded him the opportunity to lead a comprehensive planning process to create the medical school’s research strategic plan.
More recently, in February 2024, Dr. Sawyer was appointed interim dean by the WMed Board of Directors, a role he held for two years before J. Adrian Tyndall, MD, MPH, FACEP, took the helm in March as the Hal B. Jenson, MD Dean, President and CEO.
“The dean role was very interesting because I came into it more trying to stabilize the organization and I think we did a good job really due to the fantastic people I had the opportunity to work with,” Dr. Sawyer said. “I was asked to help and I said yes because this is a great institution and I felt like I had some perspective to help get the job done and I learned a lot along the way.”
Throughout his time as a leader at WMed, Dr. Sawyer continued his clinical work as a trauma surgeon, spending time and caring for patients in the operating rooms at Beacon Kalamazoo and Bronson Methodist Hospital. Those duties, Dr. Sawyer said, were important to him because it allowed him to stay in touch with faculty, residents, fellows, students, and clinical staff while also having a direct impact on patient care.
Of equal importance, he said, was his work as a researcher. Within that realm, Dr. Sawyer helped launch the medical school’s Research Academy in 2021 and during his time as interim dean he helped initiate the launch of the Southwest Michigan Institute for Health Equity Research, as well as the Surgical Transitions in Aging Residents (STAR) program, a new initiative to improve health outcomes for elderly surgical patients through a combination of elder-specific medical care and community resources.
“All of my research has been related to my clinical care work,” Dr. Sawyer said. “And that research has to do with the idea that we can continuously get better and focus on those opportunities to discover ways we can improve care and outcomes for patients in new and incredible ways.”
Prior to coming to WMed, Dr. Sawyer served in numerous leadership positions at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center including vice chair for clinical affairs and quality for the Department of Surgery, chief of the Division of Acute Care Surgery and Outcomes Research, and director of the Surgical Critical Care Residency at the University of Virginia. In 2015, he was named the C. Bruce Morton Professor of Surgery.
In addition to his work in medical education, Dr. Sawyer served as medical co-director of the University of Virginia Surgical-Trauma Burn Intensive Care Unit and medical director of the University of Virginia Surgical Intermediate Care Unit, both for more than 16 years.
Dr. Sawyer earned his MD degree from the University of Michigan in 1986 and completed his surgery residency at the University of Virginia Medical Center. While in residency training, Dr. Sawyer also completed a surgical infectious diseases fellowship. In 1996, he completed a transplant fellowship at the University of Michigan and, in 2003, he completed a surgical critical care residency at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Dr. Sawyer is board-certified in General Surgery and Surgical Critical Care and is a certified nutrition support practitioner.
As he reflected on his time at WMed, he said he was incredibly grateful for the “enthusiastic, hard- working, and very dedicated” people – leadership, faculty, residents, students, and staff – he’s had the opportunity to work alongside of since 2017.
“The quality of the people in this organization is really fantastic and that’s what makes it fun to be here and fun to work here,” Dr. Sawyer said. “That’s why there’s so much potential here at WMed and I’m eager to see how things continue to get better in the next decade or so.”
As he looks ahead to retirement, Dr. Sawyer said he plans to spend more time with his wife and their four adult children, as well as his two young grandchildren. While he plans to reduce his workload significantly, he will continue caring for patients at the VA Medical Center in Charleston, South Carolina, where he and his wife have a home. He also plans to continue assisting with ongoing research projects and the research academy at WMed.