Medical center and Clarkson College leaders are remembering former Clarkson College President and hospital CEO Lou Burgher, MD, PhD, as a transformative leader and gifted educator. Dr. Burgher passed away on Friday, July 19.
Dr. Burgher served as president of Clarkson College from 2007-2016. He continued as president emeritus for several years after that. Prior to leading Clarkson College, Dr. Burgher was the CEO of Nebraska Health System, the original name for the organization that would later become Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine. When University Hospital and Clarkson Hospital merged in 1997, the newly formed organization needed an experienced leader at the helm.
“Dr. Burgher was instrumental in creating the foundation that has led to making Nebraska Medicine into the extraordinary organization it is today,” said Jim Linder, MD, CEO and chair of the Nebraska Medicine Board of Directors. “The merger of Clarkson and University Hospitals in 1997 was complicated and required his great leadership and guidance. He was a model physician leader dedicated to supporting the staff in their delivery of patient care”
The Burgher name will live on at Clarkson College. When he retired as president in 2016, the Clarkson College board room was officially named the Dr. Louis and Susan Burgher Board Room. Clarkson leaders remember his academic impact. His leadership led to expansions in the college’s growth in enrollment and expansion of educational programs including in nurse anesthesia, family nursing practice and a doctorate in education in healthcare education and leadership.
“I remember how he saw the potential in people that they did not see in themselves,” said current Clarkson College President Andreia Nebel, EdD. “He encouraged leadership among faculty and staff members, invested in student success through an endowed scholarship, and, above all, he deeply cared about the impact our graduates would have on the future of health care.”
Said Dele Davies, MD, interim chancellor of UNMC, “As a physician, a leader and an educator, Dr. Burgher’s impact on the medical center was immense. We at UNMC join the rest of the medical center community in celebrating his life and mourning his loss.”
The visitation service will be held July 24 from 5-7:30 p.m. at West Center Chapel, 7805 W. Center Road. The funeral service will be held July 25 at 1 p.m. at West Center Chapel. The full obituary can be found here at this link.
Dr. Burgher was also a proud member of the College of Medicine class of 1970. My condolences to his family.
Prayers for him and his family.
I worked with him as a nurse and he gave me my first job as a general surgeon.
Many good memories.