Longtime UAMS official Amy Wenger joins leadership team at Walton medical school in Bentonville

HealthcareNorthwest Arkansas

by Paul Gatling ([email protected]) April 23, 2024 10:47 am 714 views 

The Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) has hired Amy Wenger as vice president of finance and administration.

AWSOM officials announced the appointment and a handful of other leadership hires for the college and its sister organization, the Heartland Whole Health Institute (HWHI), in a news release Tuesday (April 23).

In addition to Wenger, they include:

  • Alexia Riggs, senior director of library and information services (AWSOM)
  • Jonathan Brown, professor of medical microbiology and immunology (AWSOM)
  • Deven Daehn, associate vice president of community engagement (HWHI)
  • Augusta Branham, senior director of health communications (HWHI)

Before joining AWSOM, Wenger was vice chancellor for the Northwest Regional Campus at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), where she held various leadership positions over an 18 1/2-year career. With a healthcare career that spans over two decades in clinical administration, Wenger also managed specialty departments such as women and infant health, surgical specialties, nursing and psychiatry.

Wenger earned her bachelor’s degree in community health education at the University of Arkansas and her master’s degree in health services administration at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She completed her postgraduate fellowship at Vanderbilt Medical Group in Nashville, Tenn.

The medical school and the institute are under construction near Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. Walton, the Walmart heir and billionaire philanthropist, founded both of them.

The institute aims to be completed late this year. The medical school, which will offer a four-year degree-granting program that integrates conventional medicine with holistic principles and self-care practices, hopes to be approved to recruit students by this summer and welcome its first class in the fall of 2025.

For more details about the new leadership hires, click here for the AWSOM news release and here for the HWHI news release.