Wei Xiong, MD, Leads Undergraduate Medical Education with Personal, High-tech Approach, Aims to Engage Faculty in Shaping the Next Generation of Physicians

UH Research & Education Institute

Earlier this summer, Wei Xiong, MD, was named the new Director of Undergraduate Medical Education for University Hospitals. He assumed the role from Debra Leizman, MD, who retired in early June after nearly 30 years of service to UH in the realm of medical education.

Dr. Xiong, is a neurointensivist in the Reinberger Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit at UH Cleveland Medical Center. He has served as the Assistant Dean for Clerkship Education – UH for Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (CWRU SOM) since 2019 and is an Associate Professor of Neurology. Until his new appointment, he was the Neuroscience Core Clerkship Director for UH, appointed in 2013.

In his new role as Director of Undergraduate Medical Education, Dr. Xiong wants to highlight the strength of UH as a medical education powerhouse and a key tool for attracting and retaining medical students and faculty.

“The main goal of medical education at UH is to attract the best medical students we can get locally, nationally and even internationally, to come and do their training here as residents and fellows, so we can retain them as future attendings and faculty, or if they don’t stay here they come back and contribute to our mission, To Heal. To Teach. To Discover,” says Dr. Xiong.

Leveraging the Power of Medical Education

Naturally curious and optimistic, Dr. Xiong is an electrical engineer and neurologist by training, with a penchant for gadgets, innovative technologies and fixing things. Clinically focused on neurocritical and stroke care, he is particularly adept at guiding patients and families through difficult clinical situations and enjoys training future physicians, engaging them with thought-provoking questions and discussions around clinical scenarios.

In his Director of Medical Education capacity, Dr. Xiong is now responsible for clinical training of medical students at UH across all its hospitals, facilities and primary medical school affiliates, including CWRU SOM, Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED), the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and the National Taiwan University College of Medicine. As the leader of the Department of Undergraduate Medical School Education, he oversees the standardization of onboarding, medical student access, student policies, adherence to LCME guidelines, recruitment and recognition of faculty educators.

Moving forward, Dr. Xiong intends to offer more training and faculty development opportunities to boost faculty engagement and recruitment. He also aims to maximize training opportunities and enhance medical student experience, which includes a new student lounge, to effectively transfer book knowledge into actual patient care skills. He likewise plans to use artificial intelligence to streamline education-related tasks for preceptors, such as evaluations, so they can focus more time on teaching students.

A Life Steeped in Technology, Medicine and Education

Dr. Xiong was born in China, where he lived until the age of seven, before moving to Canada, and subsequently Cleveland in the sixth grade, where his father was the Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cleveland State University. Dr. Xiong says he was the child who took apart his toys and recalls peppering his father with questions on how things worked, something his father said he could only learn with a college education.

Dr. Xiong earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering at the Ohio State University in 2001 before coming back to Cleveland to attend CWRU School of Medicine. As a medical student, he gained rich experience and insight from Jose Ignacio Suarez, MD, the neurologist who established the neurocritical care unit at UH, and John Leigh, MD, another world-renowned neurologist, and clinical investigator practicing at UH.

Pursuing a career in neurology fulfilled his underlying desire to help people who are suffering. His residency at Johns Hopkins coincided with the rise of deep brain stimulation, the implantation of electrodes in the brain to address neurological conditions. “I just thought it was the most fascinating thing,” Dr. Xiong recalls. “All the neuron connections had a lot of parallels with electrical engineering.”

Upon completing his neurocritical care fellowship at Johns Hopkins in 2011, Dr. Xiong returned to Cleveland and assumed his post as an attending physician and neurointensivist in the UH Neurological Institute. Initially, he intended to become a clinical researcher, but over time what emerged was his effectiveness in teaching residents and students on rounds. Eventually, the Neuroscience Core Clerkship Director for UH and the CWRU SOM at the time stepped down and he assumed the post in 2013, launching his path in education leadership.

As an educator, Dr. Xiong enjoys problem solving and consensus building, striking a balance between student affairs and advocacy and maintaining a rigorous curriculum, to ensure graduates are skilled, clinically competent, and capable of meeting the demands of modern medicine.

Emulating His Personal Mentors to Educate the Next Generation of Physicians

Dr. Xiong credits the mentorship he received early in his career with shaping his professional path, especially around medical education. For instance, he says Dr. Jose Ignacio Suarez modeled what he wanted to accomplish as a neurointensivist and an educator. “It was hard to exhaust his knowledge and that really impressed me,” says Dr. Xiong. He learned from Dr. Suarez “that to be a really good doctor, you needed to pursue that depth of scientific knowledge. That was a goal for me.”

Dr. Xiong likewise recalls how Dr. John Leigh, who wrote one of the foremost neuro-ophthalmology textbooks as an expert in the field, was a great neurology teacher, who asked his students questions to elicit critical thinking and foster greater clinical understanding, rather than simply telling trainees what they needed to know. Years later, Dr. Xiong employs the same Socratic approach when instructing medical students, routinely embracing the concept of a “productive struggle.”

“If you have (trainees) struggle through to get the answer, they’re going to learn and retain that much better than if you just told them the correct answer,” says Dr. Xiong.

In overseeing medical education, Dr. Xiong wants to highlight the joy and satisfaction that teaching and mentorship can bring to encourage more faculty to get involved in training the next generation of physicians.

“If you can impart wisdom to someone else, you are making a big difference in their life,” says Dr. Xiong.

Aside from medicine, Dr. Xiong enjoys spending time with his family. He is married, with two children.