Boston Medical Center CEO announces retirement

Elaine Ullian, head of Boston Medical Center since its creation, will retire in January, she said today.

Ullian, 61, was chosen to lead the hospital when Boston City Hospital and Boston University Medical Center Hospital merged in 1996, becoming the first medical center in the country to combine a public hospital and an academic medical center.

The hospital now serves as a safety net for many of the city's poorest residents. It has more than 6,000 employees, 1,400 physicians, and an annual operating budget of about $2.5 billion.

Earlier this month the hospital said it expects to lose $175 million in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, and will close this year $38 million in the red, its first loss in five years. It blames the deficits partly on changes that started with the state's groundbreaking mandatory health insurance law.

"The years have flown by, and together, we built an important, effective and extraordinary medical center that is a national model of an academic medical center committed to the most vulnerable populations," she wrote in a message to staff. "Your commitment to our mission -- coupled with your extraordinary competence and loving kindness -- has inspired me each day for sixteen years."

Ted English, chair of the hospital's board of trustees, will lead the search for a new president.