Dr. Jerry Kruse, dean and provost of Springfield-based Southern Illinois University School of Medicine for the past nine years, plans to retire in summer 2026. Kruse, 72, a family physician and member of the medical school’s faculty for more than 40 years, announced his retirement to the SIU Board of Trustees at its meeting Sept. 18 in East St. Louis. He was first chosen in 2015 to succeed Dr. J. Kevin Dorsey in the medical school’s top job and began on Jan. 1, 2016. Kruse also expects to retire from his post as president and CEO of SIU Medicine, the medical school’s multispecialty group practice of doctors. “We have emergency services, urgent care, chronic care, health maintenance, acute-care management, chronic disease management, population health, and we have specialties of all sorts,” he said.