The University of Michigan Board of Regents approved two new medical school departments at their meeting Thursday afternoon.

The new cardiac surgery and computational medicine and bioinformatics departments are scheduled to come online in January.

Ora Hirsch Pescovitz

At the regents meeting, U-M Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs Ora Hirsch Pescovitz said that medical schools throughout the nation were creating cardiac surgery departments because of “the evolution of increased need.”

“There’s a national trend now,” she said

Cardiac surgery has been a section within the school’s surgery department since 1998, but Pescovitz says that advances in the field warrant a separate department for cardiac research.

“It enables us to attract the very best faculty,” she said of the new department.

The Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics has existed as one of the medical school's more than 60 programs/centers since 2005.

In a memo to regents, Medical School Dean James Woolliscroft said that turning it into a department will allow faculty to conduct research “medically relevant and critical” to the “advancing modern biomedical” field.

Kellie Woodhouse covers higher education for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at kelliewoodhouse@annarbor.com or 734-623-4602 and follow her on twitter.”