THE No. 2 man at Singapore's second medical school, the Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS), has taken over the helm as dean.

Dr Ranga Krishnan, the school's executive vice dean, succeeds the founding dean Dr Sanders Williams.

Dr Williams will focus on his role back in the United States as senior vice-chancellor for academic affairs at the Duke University School of Medicine.

Dr Krishnan, who chairs the department of psychiatry at Duke in the US, is an expert in treating depression and other brain disorders of the elderly.

In the nineties, he was credited with identifying and describing the pathology of a then little-known condition, called vascular depression, where small strokes in the mood centres of the brain give rise to a unique type of depression.

Dr Williams will still maintain links with Duke-NUS. He will co-chair the school's academic and research committee and will serve as a member on its governing board.

Duke-NUS took in its first batch of students last August.

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