Spring 2022
Mentors Creating
LEADERS
Geisel Campaign p. 2
Alumni Volunteer p. 5
Alumni Council p. 8
Meghna Patel p. 11
Health Leaders Circle p. 4
Student Spotlight p. 6
Eric Quiñones p. 10
Book Shelf p. 40
Dear Alumni and Friends, Everywhere they go, Geisel alumni are improving lives. They treat their patients with compassionate, expert care and mentor the next generation of physicians and healthcare professionals. They work to find safer, more effective ways to prevent, treat, and cure diseases. And some of them bring their skills into business and industry. Though their paths may differ, all Geisel graduates share a mission to make the world a better place. In this issue of Alumni News & Notes, we showcase just a few of the many members of the Geisel community who are making impacts in healthcare beyond the clinic based on the mentorship they received at Geisel. Christa Kuck ’24 reports on the student-run Upper Valley Human Rights Clinic (UVHRC), which, after years of foundational work, is helping people who are seeking asylum in the United States. Sarah Johansen MED’89/’90, faculty advisor for the UVHRC, has opened her heart and her home to Geisel students for more than 30 years and volunteered countless hours to student mentorship. Inspired by his 2001 clerkship with the head of Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Clinical Information Systems, Eric Quiñones MED’04 integrates his medical education with digital technology to solve problems in healthcare. And Meghna Patel MPH’04 is using data to change healthcare systems and improve the patient experience. You’ll also notice in this issue that the dean’s column is now a joint message from Dean Compton and Joanne Conroy, CEO and President, DartmouthHitchcock and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health. Collaboration between Geisel and D-H is stronger than ever, and we’ll continue to highlight this partnership in Alumni News & Notes. As mentioned in our last issue, we’ve expanded our Alumni Engagement team and are continuing our efforts to build a comprehensive alumni engagement strategy inclusive of all Geisel alumni and former residents, fellows, and physicians of D-H. We also are engaging Dartmouth College alumni who have pursued careers in healthcare. No matter which of those groups you’re in, know that our office is here to support you and we are eager to connect with you!
PRODUCED BY THE OFFICE OF ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT Amanda Bassett Director Megan Dodge Associate Director Annette Achilles Assistant Director Bridget Connolly Project Coordinator
MANAGING EDITOR Annette Achilles CONTRIBUTORS Annette Achilles Amanda Bassett Duane Compton Joanne Conroy Dana Cook Grossman Ann Hinga Klein Christa Kuck Lauren Seidman Class Secretaries Sharon Tregaskis DESIGN & PRODUCTION Farah R. Doyle Angela Stewart PHOTOGRAPHY Mark Washburn Kurt Wehde Copyright Dartmouth College Spring 2022 (Vol. 26, No. 2)
I hope you enjoy this issue of Alumni News & Notes and want to thank you for your continued efforts on the front lines of this pandemic and beyond. With gratitude,
Amanda Bassett
DIRECTOR, ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC EVENTS
CONTACT INFORMATION Office of Alumni Engagement (HB7070) Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth One Medical Center Drive, Lebanon, NH 03756 Tel: 603-646-5297 Geisel.Alumni.Relations@dartmouth.edu D-H.Alumni.Relations@hitchcock.org GeiselAlumni.org GeiselMed.Dartmouth.edu DHGeiselGiving.org
A Message from Leadership The partnership between the Geisel School of Medicine and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (D-HH) is stronger than ever. The mission of an academic health system includes educating the next generation of healthcare professionals and improving patient outcomes through research and innovation. Medical education, biomedical discovery, health-systems research, clinical research, patient care, and community health are not separate goals, but deeply interconnected. It is through our work together that we can achieve the most far-reaching impact. Geisel recently initiated a strategic planning process to refine our research and educational priorities and envision how best to support our programs. A key theme emerging from these discussions is how we can capitalize on our intimate scale to demonstrate how a medical school and an academic health network can work collaboratively for the benefit of our students, patients, faculty, and communities. This is a journey that’s already begun. In D-HH hospitals and clinics, our medical students and residents are exposed to the full spectrum of healthcare delivery. At Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), Geisel students encounter some of the sickest, most complex patients in Northern New England. They become deeply familiar with rural medicine and, in our facilities in southern New Hampshire, they gain experience in more urban settings. Our residents also receive broader exposure than they would in just one location for their training. In addition to working at DHMC and in southern New Hampshire, they can soon train in a new family practice residency program at Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, N.H. As an academic medical community, we conduct groundbreaking research and offer D-HH patients access to clinical trials. Scientific discoveries made at Geisel led to the first successful cancer immunotherapies, helped transform care for people with cystic fibrosis, and laid the foundation for the first COVID-19 vaccine. Our Cancer Center, jointly run by both of our institutions, is the only comprehensive cancer center to be fully integrated with a liberal arts college, medical school, engineering school, business school, and academic health system. This interconnectivity drives innovation, entrepreneurship, and excellence in education and patient care.
Thanks to the close ties between our institutions, researchers from The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at Geisel are able to explore their ideas for improving healthcare delivery at D-HH facilities. One example of this is the Susan & Richard Levy Health Care Delivery Incubator—a philanthropy-funded program that supports projects focused on improving patient outcomes, prioritizing patient-centered care, and reducing spending. Medical students and residents can take part in this program. In 2021, Geisel welcomed Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education Sonia Nagy Chimienti, MD; Dean of Faculty Affairs Erika Brown, PhD; and Chief of Staff Nick Ryan. Together, Geisel and D-H made a number of exciting new joint appointments, including Steven Bernstein, MD, the inaugural chief research officer for D-H and associate dean of clinical research at Geisel; and Amber Barnato, MD, MPH, MS, the new director of The Dartmouth Institute. For these reasons and more, we recognized that this letter should also be a joint endeavor. Together we’re working to build a healthier future—and together we celebrate our alumni who share this mission.
Duane A. Compton, PhD
DEAN, GEISEL SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Joanne M. Conroy, MD, D'77
CEO AND PRESIDENT, DARTMOUTH-HITCHCOCK AND DARMTOUTH-HITCHCOCK HEALTH
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 1
Geisel Campaign
Reaches $180 Million Milestone Inspired by Geisel’s vision for a healthy, resilient, and equitable future, nearly 4,000 donors have pledged more than $135 million toward Geisel’s top campaign priorities and an additional $45 million to other programs, bringing the school within reach of its $207-million goal. Their generosity is fueling vital student initiatives, research and innovation, and advances in healthcare delivery.
Gifts to key priorities 35M+
$
in support of scholarships and student programs
2 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
7M+
$
to advance the work of the Center for Global Health Equity
25M+
$
to fuel cancer research, entrepreneurship, and innovation
17M+
$
to improve healthcare delivery
The homestretch In the final year of the campaign, Geisel is seeking visionary donors to support the priorities on page 2—and the following: • Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives
$207
MILLION TARGET 100%
$180 MILLION
• The MD student coaching program
CURRENT STATE
• Child health research
80%
• Precision cancer prevention research and innovation 60%
“Our faculty, alumni, and students are improving the health and healthcare of millions of people worldwide, extending the school’s impact farther than ever before. The generosity of alumni and friends is allowing our faculty and students to pursue bold new ideas and become the healthcare leaders our world needs.”
40%
20%
—Duane A. Compton, PhD Dean, Geisel School of Medicine
Alumni are the most important supporters of our students. Let’s get to the finish line, together. Learn more about the Geisel campaign and watch our video at geiselcampaign.dartmouth.edu
Geisel
CAMPAIGN PROGRESS
In appreciation and with gratitude for your support Greek playwright Aeschylus coined the term philanthropy in the 5th century BC. It meant “love of humanity.” While the definition has evolved through the millennia, the spirit remains the same. Through your work, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth alumni demonstrate that spirit every day. Many of you extend that spirit through your philanthropic support of medical education, healthcare delivery research, and biomedical discovery. Medicine and philanthropy have mingled together for ages to benefit society and we witness that daily through your gifts to support the Geisel mission. Thank you for making Dartmouth and Geisel a priority in your lives.
Jon Fitzgerald
Executive Director of Development, Geisel School of Medicine
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 3
giving
Health Leaders Circle:
The Impact of Annual Fund Support Nick Perencevich D'69, MED'70 (center) teaches students how to suture during a class in January 2022.
I give back to Geisel because my Dartmouth education made me the physician I am today. By supporting student scholarships through the Health Leaders Circle, I know my donations will help put a Geisel education within reach for more students. And the world is a better place with more Geisel-trained physicians in it." —Nick Perencevich D’69, MED’70
Donors are stepping up to join the Health Leaders Circle, an initiative to support annual funds and critical areas of need at the Geisel School of Medicine and Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Launched in 2020, the program offers members opportunities to connect with institutional leaders through exclusive events and communications. Donors join by making a gift of $5,000 or more to a Geisel or D-H annual fund. Annual funds empower leadership to build the initiatives they see as most promising and to address needs as they arise. Donations to the Fund for Geisel, Medical Student Scholarships, the Fund for Research and Discovery, and the Cancer Director’s Fund for Excellence allow Geisel’s educational programing to grow, and its research mission to thrive. This support is making an impact. In the past year, Health Leaders Circle funds were used to renovate instructional and wellness spaces for Geisel students, supplement curricular materials, and enhance diversity programs. They’ve allowed our scientists to further their research and our students to worry less about their debt burden. Annual fund support is the foundation of excellence for our academic medical community.
TO LEARN MORE dhgeiselgiving.org/HLC
alumni volunteer
MEDICINE, MENTORSHIP, AND PIES Sarah Johansen MED’89/’90 Sarah Johansen sat in the breakfast nook at her home in Hanover last October, chatting on the phone, when Rebecca Stern MED’19 walked in. Rebecca and her husband were among three alumni couples staying with Johansen and her husband, Tom, for a fall leaf getaway. “I’m talking with a reporter,” Johansen said. “She wants to know about some of the things I do as a volunteer at Dartmouth.” Rebecca smiled and took the phone. “What doesn’t Sarah do is the easier way to describe it,” she said. “She’s just an incredibly supportive mentor.” An assistant professor of emergency medicine and of community and family medicine, Johansen is a longtime member of the Alumni Council and has also served as its president. She participates in the White Coat & Stethoscope Campaign program, advises Dartmouth’s Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) chapter, chairs the Alumni Recognition Committee, and has chaired the Syvertsen Fellows and Scholars Committee. She was also named to the Geisel Academy of Master Educators, but she waves it off, preferring to talk about her PHR students who have developed, over five years, a health clinic to assist immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. (see p. 6) “The students find not just friends, but heart colleagues with mutual interest in things that are bigger than themselves.” A Cornell graduate, Johansen arrived at Dartmouth in 1985 with Tom and their 6-month-old daughter, making her the first mom enrolled in the medical
Sarah Johansen MED'89/'90 (third from left) with medical students at a tailgate party in November 2021.
school. “My mother was supportive, but a realist. She said to me, ‘You know, you can’t save the world and have a baby.’” But Johansen had felt a spirit of community on the Dartmouth campus and recognized it as a place where people’s unique values are supported. Jonathan Ross, MD, a professor of medicine and of community and family medicine, invited Johansen and Tom to his home and introduced them to his family. He reached out periodically to ask about her progress. “He believed I was going to do important things. And he helped me believe in myself.” Flip through Johansen’s photos now, and you’ll see students toasting holidays in the home where she and Tom raised their three kids. You’ll see bonfires, pumpkin carving, and pies—lots of pies. How many students have pulled up a chair at their table? Johansen lost count long ago.
“I don't do this out of any sense of obligation,” she says. “I do it because it warms my heart to be a part of students’ journeys. I know what a difference it makes to have even one person care about you in your journey. I know because I lived it.” WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 5
student spotlight
HOPE FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS by Christa Kuck ’24
L
ast spring, the Upper Valley Human Rights Clinic (UVHRC) saw its first clients. The mission of the student-run clinic is to provide medical evaluations for people seeking asylum in the United States. Students, faculty, and community members have been working for years to make this a reality. The UVHRC represents a collaboration between Geisel’s Physicians for Human Rights chapter and Good Neighbor Health Clinic, which administers medical care to the un- and underinsured and has offered its space for the UVHRC. Our clinic
6 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
is based off of a national model for studentrun asylum clinics, present at dozens of U.S. medical schools. The process for each evaluation begins when an attorney requests our services for their client. An attorney may request a medical evaluation if their client needs to document physical or psychological conditions that are consequences of persecution in their home country. A physician, a student, and, if needed, a translator participate in the evaluation.
“Physicians have an opportunity to advocate for the dignity and well-being of those who are seeking asylum from violence and persecution.”
Having a medical evaluation can be the difference between being granted asylum and being deported. It’s often difficult for a person seeking asylum to produce evidence to substantiate their case. People fleeing persecution may leave on a moment’s notice, there may be no paper trail of their persecution, or they may not be familiar enough with the U.S. asylum process to know what evidence will be useful. The threat to asylum is present and real. For the two years prior to coming to Geisel, I worked with people seeking asylum, right after they crossed the border and were released from immigration custody in El Paso, Texas. I saw increasingly restricted access to the asylum process. Some of the policies that spawned those restrictions have been reversed, others are in the courts, and still others remain active. Physicians have an opportunity to advocate for the dignity and well-being of those who are seeking asylum from violence and persecution. Many thanks to my co-leaders Ashley Yang and Arvind Suresh, our faculty advisor Sarah Johansen, and our physician leads Pat Glowa, Don Kollisch, and Michael Kisicki who are doing this advocacy work.
Drs. Don Kollisch and Pat Glowa with Christa Kuck '24 outside the Good Neighbor Health Clinic in White River Junction, Vt.
Asylum Clinic Process* •
•
•
•
•
Asylum Clinic receives medical referral of active case.
Clinical and Student Evaluators (SE) and Interpreter are assigned.
Evaluation completed
SE drafts affidavit for review by Clinical Evaluator and the Asylum Clinic.
Final, notarized affidavit sent to Referring Legal Body.
PHASE I: MEDICAL EVALUATION LOGISTICS
PHASE II: POST EVALUATION
*This is a brief overview and not the detailed steps taken by all parties involved.
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 7
alumni council
John Houde
ACTS OF SERVICE THROUGH THE ALUMNI COUNCIL Under the leadership of President John Houde MED’92, the Alumni Council has spent the past 18 months refreshing the structure of the council through the renewal of its bylaws, building out affinity programming with student affinity group leaders, and forging a path to enhance meaningful connections between alumni and students. Through this work, we’ve redeveloped the following Alumni Council committees: Alumni Affinity Group—serves as the council’s leaders to each of the identified active affinity groups. They encourage and develop programming that engages all alumni and students and ensures the Alumni Council represents and provides value for all constituents. Leadership Annual Giving—strives to actively increase participation of alumni in annual giving, and leadership giving program the Health Leaders Circle. Student and Alumni Engagement—helps facilitate opportunities for direct interaction between students and alumni, to provide advising, networking, and mentoring to individual students or to student groups and organizations.
8 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Alumni Recognition—leads the Alumni Awards Program to recognize and honor former classmates, peers, and other worthy alumni.
alumni council
Alumni Council Representatives
We’ve also developed a Student and Alumni Engagement Chair in the Geisel student government. Michael Hoggard ’22 has spent the past year working closely with the Alumni Engagement team and student government leadership to help organize and curate programming across several of the committees. Initiatives include Heritage Month programming, specialty mixers for students, residents, and alumni, and ensuring the alumni office is responding to and supporting the variety of needs the student government identifies. Through these acts of service and mentorship, alumni continue to engage and support the medical school and the next generation of healthcare leaders. Alumni engagement and volunteers are critical to the Geisel and DartmouthHitchcock communities.
FOR MORE INFORMATION on how you can help support Geisel students and D-H residents and fellows, please contact Amanda.J.Bassett@hitchcock.org.
Barry D. Smith MED’60
Kristen M. Telischak MED’09
Theodore S. Tapper MED’62
Sherzana Sunderji MED’10
Alan A. Rozycki MED’63
Kolene E. Bailey MED’12
Philip R. Boulter MED’64
Chelsea R. Mehr MED’13
Stephen A. Stein MED’65
Jeanie K. Ringelberg MED’14
John D. Bullock MED’66
Lynn K. Symonds MED’16
John H. Buckner MED’67
Asha B. McClurg MED’16
Robert L. Thurer MED’68
Kimberly Betts Sigman MED’17
Nick P. Perencevich MED’70
Lovelee E. Brown MED’17
Joseph F. O'Donnell MED’71
Thomas A. Wilcoxon MED’18
Bruce G. Hardy MED’72
Jose L. Porras MED’18
Oglesby H. Young MED’75
Kyle T. Jones MED’19
Roberta L. Hines MED’78
Elizabeth A. Hoffman MED’19
Vincent D. Pellegrini MED’79
Christiaan A. Rees MED’20
Matthew L. Sherman MED’80
Shruthi Nammalwar MED’20
Jeffrey D. Georgia MED’81
Nicolina S. Mascia MED’21
Brita S. Reed MED’82
Jamie A. Hillas MED’21
Ronald W. Lane MED’84 Douglas S. Tyler MED’85
PhD Representatives
Laurie F. Draughon MED’85
Phillip W. Berman PhD’77
Patricia I. Dillon MED’86
Mardi A. Crane PhD’04
Joyce Nolan Harrison MED’87
Yolanda C. Nesbeth PhD’10
Aristotle J. Damianos MED’88
Charles R. Wira PhD’70
Sarah G. Johansen MED’89 Lisa V. Adams MED’90 Sandra Margoles MED’91]
Geisel TDI MPH Representatives
John P. Houde MED’92
Atiqa Mohammad MPH’12
Kristin P. Casale MED’94
Jeanie K. Ringelberg MPH’14
Lynn L. Marshall MED’95 Elizabeth A. Kelley MED’98
D-H Resident/Fellow Alumni Representatives
Rondall K. Lane MED’98
John P. Connors HS’95-02
Paul A. Testa MED’03
Joseph F. Sackett HS’66-72
Louai Razzouk MED’05
William E. Boyle HS’70-71
Kristen L. Thornton MED’05
Kevin S. Fleming HS’03-06
E. Benjamin Gardner MED’96
Thomas J. Kesman MED’06 Jamie L. Bessich MED’07 Caitlin S. Farabaugh MED’08
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 9
alumni profile
FROM CLERKSHIP CODEBREAKING TO MED-TECH ROLE MODEL Eric Quiñones MED’04 Like physicians everywhere, Eric Quiñones fields his fair share of queries from loved ones with mysterious symptoms. But that’s not his only role. “I’m also the IT guy that people call,” he quips. As chief healthcare advisor at World Wide Technology, whose Fortune 100 clients provide healthcare for 1 in 5 patients across the U.S., Quiñones integrates his medical education with the leading edge of digital technology to help C-level executives solve emerging problems in healthcare. Think: data and digital tools that innovatively transform healthcare to improve clinical outcomes, lower cost, improve the patient care experience, and enhance the clinician work life. The med-tech bug bit Quiñones in 2001 during his clerkship with Joshua Lee, MD, then head of Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Clinical Information Systems. Lee was building DartmouthHitchcock Medical Center’s first electronic health record system. Quiñones was on the user interface team. “The engineers would write new code,” he recalls, “and I’d be responsible for breaking it.”
I have to help those who may see barriers, who may not see that they can go into medicine, into tech, or do both.”
Eric Quiñones
Quiñones credits his technical expertise to a self-described “geek gene,” congenital fearlessness, and on-the-job training with gifted engineers, including those on Lee’s team at Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Such collaborations yield optimal products for patients and providers alike, he notes. “In the early days, a lot of health tech was developed by really talented folks with the best intentions, but without direct clinical guidance,” he says. “The tech that results is maybe more disruptive, adds more friction, than if clinicians were involved early on.” Consider, for example, critical gaps in the earliest commercial electronic health records. “They weren’t asking about ethnicity, whether English is the patient’s first language,” recalls Quiñones, who is Chicano. “I was very vocal about building social determinants of health into the software.” Today, Quiñones helps his clients— especially those in federal agencies like the Veterans Administration—work through the logistics of optimizing care for patients who don’t have the latest smart phone or who have only spotty internet access. As the first in his Los Angeles family to attend college, Quiñones now co-chairs Geisel’s LatinX Alumni in Healthcare and Biomedical Science affinity group. “I didn’t realize I was becoming a role model,” he says of his journey from LA to Hanover and back again. “I have to help those who may see barriers, who may not see that they can go into medicine, into tech, or do both.”
alumni profile
A PROBLEMSOLVING APPROACH Meghna Patel MPH’04 Meghna Patel laid the cornerstone of her career in a Dartmouth classroom. She’d already earned an MBA in healthcare administration from Union College, but she was still seeking a profession in which to integrate her seemingly disparate interests in clinical care, public health, and process improvement. As a student in the ninemonth, accelerated masters of public health degree program at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, she found her niche. “It’s been a great foundation for me,” says Patel, the staff vice president-operational excellence at CareMore & Aspire-Anthem Diversified Business Group (DBG), a care delivery organization that serves more than 100,000 people nationwide. “I’m always taking a problem-solving approach.” She credits Paul Batalden, MD, now a professor emeritus at The Dartmouth Institute, and his course Continual Improvement of Health Care for cementing her priorities. Says Patel: “He talked about looking at the clinical microsystem, starting at the lowest level and looking at data, process, and outcomes.” His favorite saying still rings in her ears: “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” Patel worked for six years in analytics and quality improvement for Stanford Healthcare and Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital before she realized there was one more perspective she needed to understand the systems she was refining—so she became a registered nurse. “Being a naturally curious person, I got some really good exposure in a variety of clinical settings,” says Patel, who did stints in pediatric critical care nursing, adult surgical oncology nursing, and geriatric home health case management. Today, Patel says, her job boils down to a single principle: “My role is to ensure that patients receive the right care at the right time in the right
Meghna Patel
setting”—echoing a similar phrase often heard at Dartmouth-Hitchcock. “How can I do that? By designing processes based on data that result in improved patient experience and outcomes.” And while she misses the one-on-one connections she had with patients and their families as a nurse, the patients she currently serves—elders receiving institutional-level healthcare in their homes or residential facilities—are perhaps the nation’s most vulnerable. “If I want to work on the high-level systems change I learned to do at Dartmouth,” she says, “I need to step back and focus on the systems-level changes that can ultimately make a difference in a person’s care.”
“My role is to ensure that patients receive the right care at the right time in the right setting”—echoing a similar phrase often heard at Dartmouth-Hitchcock. “How can I do that? By designing processes based on data that result in improved patient experience and outcomes.” WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 11
class notes
CLASS NOTES ▼ 1952
Bob Oneal '55, left, shakes hands with John Moran '55, right, after a legendary golf stunt.
Ed Landau and Philomena; Giles Hamlin and his daughter, Liz; and I and five family members got together for the Spirit of ’51 Award reunion dinner on Sept. 10, 2021, at the Hanover Inn. I received one of the two awards, and my brief talk included my recollection of being present as chief surgical resident at Mary Hitchcock when my mentor, Dr. William Mosenthal, opened one of the first intensive care units in the nation. Ed Landau said at the time that he wanted to attend our next DMS’52 reunion. Sadly, he passed away two weeks later. I also had a long talk with Kay and Jack Hyland recently. Jack works out at a gym three times a week. They often visit their pediatrician daughter in northeastern Texas on weekends when she covers. She bought a farm with three cows, three small horses, and three donkeys. I asked, “Why donkeys?” It turns out they came with the farm and no one else wants them. Ace Mueller sends his best wishes to all and misses not getting together and talking with each other. He is in much better spirits now that he can visit Barbie in person. Giles and I plan to attend our reunion—on Sept. 16-18, 2022— and hope that others will join us there. —Jim Cavanagh
12 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
▼ 1955
An article in the most recent issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine detailed the decline and demise of Dartmouth’s nine-hole golf course. It brought to mind a famous (to DMS’55s) match in May of 1955 between me and Bob Oneal. His incessant talk about his golf game the previous winter got to the point where I told him I could beat him by throwing the ball while he played his usual game. The match was on. We were followed by a sizeable retinue, including, as referee, Don Brief, who set the rules. I was allowed to drop the ball in the cup once I was within arm’s reach of it, rather than having to hand-putt, while Bob spent a fair amount of time getting out of the rough: these were the factors that allowed me to win handily. The part of the story Bob likes to tell is that my arm was so sore I couldn’t play tennis that summer. Speaking of Don, his situation remains stable owing to immunotherapy with Keytruda. A troublesome side effect is peripheral neuropathy, but he copes and remains upbeat. Ed Horton and Betty are downsizing and consolidating by moving out of their apartment in Brookline and returning to their farmhouse near Burlington, Vt. The two locations represent his two careers: 26 years at the University of Vermont, rising through the academic ranks from director of endocrinology and metabolism to chair of medicine, then on to positions as medical director of the Joslin
Clinic in Boston, director of endocrinology and metabolism at Beth Israel Hospital, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Ed looks forward to puttering around their property, tending his garden, and putting on his skis at the back door and heading out on his XC trail. Bruce Pattee’s son Mark and two of my sons have become friends over the years. Recently, Mark has been a great help to my grandson Jay during his difficult freshman/pandemic year at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, where Bruce and Lynn lived for many years and where Mark grew up. Bruce had a number of photo albums, one of which focused on the doings of DMS’55s, which Mark showed to my son Mike, Jay’s dad. Mark gave permission for Mike to forward the digitized pictures to me, and in turn for me to forward them to the class. Many of them were taken during Green Key weekend in 1955 and included our dates (in some cases, our future wives). One photo was of Bob and me after that golf match, shaking hands, no hard feelings. Another was a class shot from September of 1953, shortly after our matriculation. I knew there were 24 of us in the class, yet I could count only 23 in the picture. I finally realized that I was missing, having taken the picture! For my 90th birthday in November, we decided against any kind of celebratory gathering in favor of a Zoom gathering of family members and a few close friends. To avoid a barrage of congratulations (undeserved,
class notes
because getting to this landmark is a matter of blind luck, choice of parental genome, and avoidance of near-death experiences), the theme was to have everyone share something about themselves that they thought the rest of us didn’t know. Ross McIntyre and Burt Onofrio joined in and told some good stories. Both are in fine fettle. John Crowe and Joan are now in a senior living situation called Brandywine in Phoenixville, Pa., but still maintain their home in Canton, Mass., as well as their compound on Lake Kezar in Maine, where they spent the entire summer, hosting an armada of family and friends. They have, in effect, turned the property over to their children, including son Jeffrey, who has built a new home there. Jeffrey has long been a staunch Dartmouth supporter and has served on the College Board of Trustees. Ben Gilson and Sarah report they are both still upright and active: “Living in Hanover is a pleasure. Kendal at Hanover (‘the Home,’ as my kids call it) has done well through the epidemic. I have what seems like a case of surgical masks available, one hanging around my neck most of the time. Seems like the old days, but no blood or pseudomonas. I walk like an old sailor, which I am. My best to all.” Finally, I’m sad to report that Bruce Pattee’s wife, Lynn, died on April 30, 2021, of complications after a fall. We had been in touch last Christmas, when she was still active and doing her art as “the Designing Woman.” —John Moran
▼ 1956
The Geisel-DMS Class of 1956 extends its deep condolences to the family of John “Jack” Porvaznik, who died on June 22, 2021. Jack and his wife, Eunice (who died on April 13, 2019), were extraordinary individuals. For more than three decades, they devoted their lives to the provision of health care to Native Americans in Arizona and New Mexico—Eunice as a nurse and Jack as a surgeon initially and then as chief medical officer for the Indian Health Service. Jack and Eunice were passionate about their service to our Native American population, a passion now shared by their daughter, Dr. Mary Porvaznik, who serves as a physician on the Southwest Indian Reservation where Eunice delivered her! Jack and Eunice will be greatly missed. In other news, Phil Mossman reported that he and his family are well and that he was busy cleaning his yard of fallen autumn leaves. This writer was in Hanover the weekend of Nov. 12. As always, despite rain, it was beautiful, with the remaining leaves still displaying bright autumnal colors. Finally, I hope you and your associates had a wonderful holiday season and enjoy a healthy New Year. —Allen Root
▼ 1958
I am sad to report that we have lost another member of our medical school class. I have written before about how I have looked back on the cohort that met around our microscopes in a U-shaped group and about how there was always a spirit of
closeness and mutual striving among us. Perhaps this group will meet again in a better place. We can hope so, because I believe we were always a unit. Dave Kamper was always a solid member of our group. I think during our entire time in school, both at Dartmouth and at Harvard, that Dave roomed with the same two students. In the obituary from Dave’s home in Milwaukee, it was said that Dave was bossed around by his elder sisters and had his first job digging graves at the Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee. After finishing medical school, he spent some time in the military and then did a series of residencies and fellowships in Beaufort, Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee. While engaged in these activities, leading up to his subspecialty in cardiology, he married his wife, Cheri, with whom he had three children. I believe that their son also went to Dartmouth. In any event, he settled down in Milwaukee, where he served as a principal care physician for his fortunate patients, making house calls and visits at Columbia Hospital and at St. Luke’s Hospital. Cheri, unfortunately, died early, and Dave found another caring woman, for whom he could also care, and married Elaine Garnett. They lived by a lake outside of Milwaukee for many years before leaving for the North Woods. Besides Cheri and Elaine, Dave was a lover of the Green Bay Packers and of his three children and 11 grandchildren—two of whom, I believe, have already died (I do not know the circumstances). The funeral service was the Lutheran Church in Arbor Vitae, Wis. He was buried on October 4. He was always a man of faith, and donations in his memory can be made to Peace
Class Secretaries 1948
Lou Pernokas
428 Tanglewood Trail Stephenville, TX 76401 Home: 254-434-4627 louper@nctv.com
1952
Jim Cavanagh
3950 Bellac Road Tallahassee, FL 32303-2648 Home: 850-562-1533 jim.cavanagh@med.fsu.edu
1955
John Moran
77 Cliff Street Plymouth, MA 02360 Home: 508-746-1492 jomo1114@aol.com
1956
Allen W. Root
4916 Saint Croix Drive Tampa, FL 33629-4831 Home: 813-286-1333 aroot3@jhmi.edu
1957
Alan J. Friedman
115 Central Park West, Apt. 4B New York, NY 10023 Pref-Fax: 212-679-5580 ajfmdpc@yahoo.com
1958
Melvin Britton
8545 Carmel Valley Road Carmel, CA 93923 Cell: 650-483-1262 melvincbritton@aol.com
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Register Today!
CO
NNEC
T We’re excited to invite you to a longawaited weekend of reminiscing, education, and socializing with surgeons who trained at DartmouthHitchcock and the Geisel School of Medicine/Dartmouth Medical School.
• COM
BACK •
REUNION
ER
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SURGERY ALUMNI
ISCO V •D
class notes
AUGUST 26–27, 2022 To register or see full schedule and list of lodging options visit
GeiselAlumni.org/ SurgeryReunion2022
Questions? Contact Megan Dodge, D-H.Alumni.Relations@hitchcock.org or 603–646–5742
Lutheran Church, 10868 Old Highway 51 North, Arbor Vitae, WI 54568—or, if you wish, you can simply practice random acts of kindness, as he did throughout his life. His was a life well lived. —Mel Britton
▼ 1959
I heard from a couple of classmates this time around—it’s nice to see some familiar names in the notes. Bob Keller sent in a note with an update about himself and Marie, “Re us, Marie underwent an arthroscopic procedure on her right knee a couple of months ago. Since that is her paraplegic side, we did not expect much, as there was a degree of arthritis and a torn lateral meniscus. Removal of the torn meniscus fragment and some articular
cartilage debridement seem to have helped moderately and provided some increased ability to ambulate, at least for a while. “Otherwise, things are pretty stable. I am staying moderately active with house and gardentype work, but there are some jobs that I can’t do alone anymore. That is to be expected, but is frustrating. I do play tennis twice a week—not well, but it is good exercise. Best to you and all the others.” Stu Slingerland provided the following update: “Hi, Tom. Suzanne and I send our greetings to all. After 17 years of retirement from Utah Valley Pediatrics, Utah Valley Hospital, and Intermountain Health Care, we have recently moved into a retirement facility, Courtyard at Jamestown, here in Provo. Our 5,200-square-foot home was getting to both of us, in spite of
14 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
having lived in and cherished it for 45 years. It was much, much harder to leave our wonderful neighbors and our Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ward members. Now we are in a slightly less than 1,000-squarefoot apartment, with two bedrooms and baths, a comfortable living room (no fireplace!), and a pullman kitchen. No cooking necessary; all meals are provided in a comfortable dining room, with a full menu of choices and table service, just as in a restaurant. There are many activities in-house, including an active branch of the church. We both still drive to attend local theater, concerts, and Elder Quest courses taught by retired BYU professors—it’s just like being back in college (but no exams!). “We both remain in basic good health—that is, no life-threatening issues.
Suzanne does have significant back pain in spite of two indicated surgeries. We are dealing with it by spinal injection interventions. “We are not certain that we will be able to return back East again, sad to say. Long-distance traveling is becoming more difficult and stressful. Our kids are scattered: West Virginia, Idaho, Oregon, and Arizona. Our oldest daughter lives in spectacular Kanab, Utah, where she works at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and loves it. Only two are near us—one in Spanish Fork and one, our Down syndrome son, Michael, in neighboring Orem in a group home. Our daughter in Oregon and son in Arizona orchestrated (kidnapped!) our move to Jamestown very nicely. We knew it was time and are grateful.” I received word that Ralph Miller passed away on
class notes
November 21, 2021. There is a nice obituary online which you can find here: dartgo.org/ millermed59. Judy and I are also doing well and, as of this writing, are looking forward to a family reunion for Thanksgiving! Please send me a quick line about how you are doing—we’d all love to know. —Tom Aaberg
▼ 1960
Since my last column, we sadly learned of the death on Aug. 20, 2021, of Bob Liberman. Bob was internationally known for his work with individuals with chronic schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, and his methods of treatment, which allowed many patients to return to a much more normal life, have been recognized nationally and internationally. On a happier note, I had a very upbeat phone conversation with Helen and Lee Gilliatt. I learned that they are continuing to lead a very active and enjoyable life in North Carolina, with Helen still making beautiful music on the piano and organ. We got to see both of them during the Class of ’59 virtual mini-reunion on Nov. 3. Tippy Putnam sent me some enjoyable tonguein-cheek messages about our class’s time navigating biochemistry with our very research-oriented faculty. He wants a retake on his final exam, which, as you may remember, included various questions that I learned later, in my case, involved the subject of a person’s PhD thesis. Bob DiMauro sent some informative emails about another DMS graduate, Tom Kosasa ’69, who has had a
wonderful career as a reproductive endocrinologist. He has made significant contributions to his field, to Geisel, and to several organizations, including the medical school in Hawaii, where he grew up and spent his career. With half of our class now deceased, I would like to hear from more of you who have been silent about yourselves over the past few years. Please consider writing me or joining one of our Class of ’59 virtual minireunions, which include chat sessions after the presentations. —Barry Smith
▼ 1961
I’ve said in emails that “I hope this note finds you and your loved ones on as steady a track as possible during these unstable and aggravating days and nights. That is clearly my continuing wish at this time. Let us pray things will be on a rapid upswing soon.” Unfortunately, that prayer hasn’t yet been completely answered, and we continue to struggle with this pandemic. Linda and I, vaccinated and boosted, are hanging in there, seeing our vaccinated children and grandchildren every few months. We plan to resume our annual winter trip to California in February, hoping to get together while we’re there with Debby and Marty Weiss, Jeannie and Tay Weinman, and DC’60 classmate Joe Mandel and his spouse, Jean. On a sad note, we mourn the passing of Saul Roskes’s beloved wife, Danielle, after her long bout with Alzheimer’s. May her memory be a blessing. I also heard from the following classmates: Tay Weinman: “Good to see we still have so many active
email addresses. I wonder how our survival rate matches up with that of other classes? I’m still working about three-quarter (waltz) time. We joined our practice with several others in the LA area, then sold to a private equity group for beaucoup bucks. I imagine I’ll finally retire in a year or so. Like the adage ‘Don’t get old—it’s a trap’ says, I had an internal cardiac pacemaker installed successfully six weeks ago because my pulse had dropped to the low 40s and I was exhausted all the time. Jeannie’s Alzheimer’s has progressed only minimally in the last year. The one plus of the disease is that it’s handy to have a wife who forgets in five minutes how PO’d she is with you! Hope you’re doing OK. Thanks for doing this.” Frank Virnelli: “The last column was a wonderful tribute to Conner Moore. For years, Judy and I looked forward to our annual visits with Conner and Wendy; I always left those visits feeling uplifted after witnessing the courage with which they both faced the relentless progression of his Parkinson’s disease. And his memoir, From Black Bag to Blackberry, is a wonderful account of the changes in medical practice from the perspective of a smalltown pediatrician over the course of 40 years. Visiting a local restaurant with them for ‘the best lobster rolls in Maine’ never failed to result in a line of appreciative parents and former patients thanking him for all he’d done for the community and wishing him the best. He was a remarkable individual, and I was proud to be a classmate and friend. “One of the joys of retirement has been having more time to read. I’d like to mention two books that I’ve particularly
Class Secretaries 1959
Thomas M. Aaberg, Sr. 2391 Parrotts Pointe Road Greensboro, GA 30642 Home: 706-467-9382 ophttma@emory.edu
1960
Barry D. Smith
195 Willey Hill Road PO Box 238 Norwich, VT 05055 Home: 802-649-1438 Cell: 603-748-1332 bdsmith646@earthlink.net
1961
Sol Rockenmacher
25 Saint Andrews Drive Bedford, NH 03110-6129 Home: 603-232-3477 rockenmacher@comcast.net
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 15
class notes
enjoyed. Both were written by nonscientists about remarkable scientific developments. I recently finished Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker, about Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna and the development of CRISPR-based gene editing. It’s a wonderful account of what can be accomplished when scientists work together—including the unprecedentedly rapid development of multiple mRNA-based vaccines against COVID. It’s a surprisingly easy read, considering the complexity of the material, and includes a remarkable cast of characters. The other book is Richard Rhodes’s The Making of the Atom Bomb, a classic published over 25 years ago, with an even more impressive cast of characters. I highly recommend both and encourage classmates to send me their own
recommendations of special books they’ve read.” And speaking of Conner Moore, it was wonderful to hear from Wendy Moore: “Never did I ever imagine writing to the DMS’61 column! It’s coming up on a year since Conner’s passing—both the longest and most quickly passing year. After playing tag with COVID for nine months, we finally had a community service for him. It was during the October long weekend, when it was not too cold yet to hold it outside. There were many loving, respectful, humorous tributes. After 56 years, it’s lonely without him, but our sons have taken very good care of me. I’m sorry to hear that you are collecting diagnoses, Sol.” I thought the following exchange between Frank
Ken Danielson ’63 and the 1928 Model A Ford he restored.
16 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Virnelli and Marty Weiss would be a wonderful way to end this column. Frank wrote: “According to my count of the mailing list, there are 19 of us left from the class that started in the old med school building 62 years ago. That’s something to be thankful for. It would be great to have more classmates return for a reunion when it’s safe to have one again.” And Marty responded: “We are indeed fortunate, Frank, to have our remaining classmates with us. What a pleasure it might be for all of us remaining to share in each other’s joy. In the interim, let’s hope that all remain well.” Amen! —Sol Rockenmacher
▼ 1962
It’s November 2021 as I write this, and winter has arrived— early. The temperatures at night are below freezing, but there’s no a.m. frost—yet. COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.A. alone now total over 760,000. Philly football has a losing record, the Phillies didn’t make the playoffs for the 10th year in a row, and the Sixers are on a losing streak that now stands at six games. In other words, normal sports records here. One bit of good news: no successful coup in Washington D.C.—yet. First the sad news. Gary Manchester died on Aug. 24, 2021. He’d had some major health problems the last several years. After his residencies in general and plastic surgery, he was in private practice in San Diego for decades, until his retirement. For years, he bred and trained English bulldogs. Several decades ago, Shelly and I were in San Diego for a pediatric meeting. I called Gary, and he sent his practice’s limo to pick us up and take us on a
tour of his town. In a recent HMS magazine, a graduate from there described Gary as excited and enthusiastic, with a “reverence for clinical care . . . who went out of his way” to teach medical students. May Gary’s memory be for a blessing. Two-thirds of our classmates are still around. Doug Zipes was featured during a College mini-reunion Zoom session. He described his fiction-writing (five books so far) in detail. His next novel, Ari’s Spoon, was due to be released before the end of 2021 (and will be available through Amazon). Doug recently was awarded the J.O. Ritchey Award by his decades-long home, Indiana University. Arthur Provisor is still hanging out in Columbus, Ga. His clinical work in pediatrics and peds heme-onc ended in 2019. He still flies to his old medical home in Indianapolis to visit with his three preteen grandchildren. Bill Weintraub is still ensconced in his suburban Philadelphia condominium. Bill and Franee recently went to Northern Virginia to see their family there. Their only grandchild recently started her freshman year at American University. Unfortunately, Bill fell in early November and sustained a fractured humeral head. A sling, analgesics, and time is his current therapeutic regimen. Speaking of grandchildren, several of David Steinberg’s grandchildren are in Hanover. Two (out of the total of eight) are undergraduates at the College, and two others (who are under age five) live there with their parents— David’s son and daughter-in-law (who is a doctor at DHMC). Last August, Shelly and I took a 10-day small-boat trip (just 14 travelers) to the Galapagos Islands. We saw amazing, unafraid animals, includ-
class notes
ing sea lions, tortoises, and blue-footed boobies (among others). Hiking and snorkeling were almost daily events. Our next junket is scheduled for early February 2022, to Costa Rica and the Panama Canal. In May 2022, we’re going to California for a granddaughter’s bat mitzvah. The next DMS’62 reunion will be Sept. 16-18, 2022. Log in at www.GeiselAlumni.org/reunion for more information. I’m still unable to contact Dan Jackson. May all you do contribute to the common good. —Ted Tapper
▼ 1963
Another year has come to a close, meaning we in the medical school Class of 1963 have been away from our alma mater for 58-plus years. So it’s not too early to begin to plan ahead for our 60th reunion in 2023, hopefully to be held in Hanover. But, before we do that, how about getting together on Zoom? Annie Laurie and Jack Babson, Roger Christian, Adrienne and Bill Couser, Karin and Ken Danielson, Eleanor and Gene Lariviere, and I get together monthly for far-ranging discussions: on medicine, politics, books, laughter—you name it! A few of you have already responded in the affirmative to my earlier query asking if you’d be interested in joining us—Barry Levine, Mike Norman, and Alan Weinberg. How about the rest of you out there? This past fall, Roger Christian drove up from the Boston area, and he and Joan and I rendezvoused at Karin and Ken Danielson’s lovely home in Peacham, Vt. The foliage was in full flourish; the weather was beautiful; the
food was delicious; and we were treated to the boisterousness of the Danielsons’ multiple dogs and a fun Zoom session from their magical garden. Our departure later that afternoon was capped off by Ken proudly displaying his 1928 model A Ford, fully restored. What a beauty! So there you have it. Join the Class of 1963 Zoom—it’ll be fun sharing our stories, laughing together, and figuring out further strategies to successfully survive with this damned ongoing pandemic. Joan and I wish you well: Stay safe. Do good. —Alan Rozycki
▼ 1964
We had, I felt, a very successful Zoom gathering, with 16 participants. Through the tireless efforts of Abe Aranow, we were able to contact 30 classmates. We could not find email addresses for two of us—Andy Cole and Phil Taylor. Eleven of us are deceased. In general, most of us are fully retired, though some are still practicing in a very limited capacity. Others are still teaching, and many have pursued activities outside medicine (travel, gourmet cooking, writing, and financial consulting, to name a few pursuits). The health of most who participated is good, though many have been plagued with orthopaedic problems. Several can still play tennis, ride horses, and even ski. Many have revisited Hanover, some on a regular basis. New England and California seem to be the best-represented states. Some of us have great-grandchildren, whereas others still have children in high school. My impression was that most thoroughly enjoyed seeing their
old classmates and hearing about their activities and would like to connect again in a few years. —Richard Edelson
▼ 1966
Last October, Cheryl and I hiked with Road Scholar through the Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in Utah. It was a beautiful tour, led by a geologist and a botanist. As usual on these trips, we walked with about a dozen others from all over the country, making good friendships. This is one of the enjoyments of retirement, which prompted me to wonder what proportion of us have fully retired from medical work and how we are spending our time. Sarah Donaldson says she was “reluctant to retire after 52 continuous years at Stanford, but have now accepted the emerita title. I continue to stay involved in the teaching and mentoring programs, so in reality little has changed for me. The transition was slow in coming, but I am adjusting quite well.” John Looney “will leave the Duke faculty in June. I am not taking any new patients and am gradually working my long-term patients toward a finish, but I will still work a bit with my research team.” He and Susan will spend more time at their ranch in Tennessee. “I hope the plan works,” he concludes. John Kaiser gradually tapered his diagnostic work “from full- to quarter-time, two or three weeks a month from May to October. Somewhere around 2015, I quit diagnostic work and only taught an eight-week summer-student program, finally retiring this past summer.” He keeps up with
Class Secretaries 1962
Ted Tapper
522 Howe Road Merion Station, PA 19066-1107 Home: 610-664-3590 ted.tapper@live.com
1963
Alan A. Rozycki
56 McKenna Road Norwich, VT 05055 Home: 802-649-1578 alan.a.rozycki@dartmouth.edu
1964
Richard Edelson
3001 Veazey Terrace NW, Apt 1602 Washington, DC 20008 redelson@gmail.com
1966
John Davenport
2012 Drew Avenue S Minneapolis, MN 55416 Cell: 952-237-4076 jdav0743@gmail.com
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 17
class notes
Register Today!
ALUMNI REUNION
We’re excited to invite you back to Hanover for a weekend of reconnecting, rediscovering, and reuniting. Can’t make it in person—reconnect with your classmates and the school virtually!
SEPTEMBER 16-18, 2022
To register or to see full schedule and list of lodging options, please visit
Geisel/DMS classes ending in 2s and 7s
GeiselAlumni.org/reunion
weekend
Questions? Contact Bridget Connolly at Geisel.Alumni.Relations@dartmouth.edu or 603-646-5135
medical advances and finds “the insights into diseases remarkable. Things that only had names when we were in school now often have mechanisms and even new treatments. I wonder how new doctors will cope with this plethora of information. Will there be more subspecialization? Perhaps we will end up like England, where GPs take care of outpatients, and if anything serious arises patients are referred to hospital and inpatient specialists. Regarding retirement, I have no shortage of interesting things to do: piano, guitar, kayaking, extensive reading, and, yes, Sunday football.” Sandy Hight: “After arriving in Hartford in 1981, I joined two practicing pediatric surgeons. Eventually the division grew,
with the support of the University of Connecticut Medical Center. The Connecticut Children’s Medical Center opened in 1996, and as the first director of the division, I consolidated pediatric surgical care into a single institution. The surgical staff now numbers seven, with the succeeding division head an unbelievable talent—running a full basic science lab and recently appointed chief of the surgical services. What a thrill to see the ability of these young surgeons to take on the task and guide the specialty and the hospital to national prominence. Retirement comes easier when you know the years of labor have produced a strong faculty and future for the institution.” John Kattwinkel is fully retired from clinical care. “I
18 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
continue part-time on the UVA faculty, where I am co-PI on a multicenter research grant that is scheduled to close this year. Phyllis and I have down-sized to a condo in Charlottesville. We are both well and COVIDnegative.” Deane Mosher: “Reading Sarah Donaldson’s email about retirement and John Looney’s about not-retirement got me thinking about what active learners we have been and how prolific in writing papers. I checked PubMed and found more than 1,000 papers from at least 18 of us. This isn’t as many papers as by the class behind us—John Mulvihill has more than 300 and Ralph DeFronzo more than 700—but we have contributed in many areas and still do.”
Steve Sherman: “Gale and I had a quiet summer, avoiding as much as possible the unvaccinated masses of Arizona. We did visit grandchildren in Colorado and Montana. I had the opportunity to do some offshore sailing in August, from England to northwest Spain, and had a lovely sail across the Bay of Biscay and enjoyed the Galicia region for a few days.” —John Davenport
▼ 1967
Requests of classmates for this year’s Thanksgiving experiences brought forth the following responses: From Rick Donn: “COVID aside, this has been a wonderful year. We have our first grand-
class notes
daughter (now 5 months old), we have our health, and I just completed two projects—a pond in our backyard and a wood-fired pizza oven. I am semiretired but still enjoy a moderately sized private practice. I look forward to our 55th reunion and, God willing, would like to attend in person in Hanover.” From Mack Rogers: “After 20 months of waiting for the pandemic to be over, it’s becoming clearer that we are settling into a new endemic threat and a world that will be different and transformed, sometimes in good ways. I moved to Maine full-time from the Boston area 13 years ago, enjoyed another phase of my career in the VA, and finally retired in 2021. My priorities are my family and friends, volunteer work, and woodworking and making art. The family includes my wife, siblings, two children and their spouses, and five grandchildren who live pretty close by, plus a much larger extended family. The volunteer work is being on the board of a nearby retirement community; this has helped me to anticipate further stages of aging. At the moment, I am grateful for good health and the privilege of having had a career in medicine and for many other things. Every day I make a to-do list and never quite do everything.” From John Mulvihill: “The eight-leafed table that has housed as many as 18 celebrants for prior T-days accommodated seven Thanksgiving-ers this year: Charlotte and me; daughter Kate and her two kids (ages 20 and 16), who returned at 3:00 a.m. on T-day from a vacation in Puerto Rico; and two work friends of Kate’s who have become family regulars and are
superb chefs and great kitchen crew. The pre-dessert stretch was a tour of a stupendous quilt display in the central hall of our community facility at the continuing-care retirement community that we joined 15 months ago.” John is happy to share photos of these beautiful quilts if you’d like to see for yourself! As for me and mine, Shirley and I traveled to be with our son and his family in Madison, Wis., for several days. My hands never got warm the whole time. Our daughter and family joined us from the Chicago area on Thanksgiving day, and we drank and talked and ate, and then drank and talked and ate some more. I’m still part-time at the UT medical school but mainly to manage our biorepository, work with the occasional researcher, and fill in at anatomic pathology once in a while. Have performed quite a few lab inspections this year, but almost all were virtual, with the only trip being a week in Hawaii in September to inspect 10 labs. Shirley has retired from substitute teaching in our high schools and is looking for something safer that will get her out of the house. Aside from the usual age-related aches and pains, our health is good, and we are grateful for our families and for all the good that life has given us. Hope to see y’all at our DMS 55th reunion on Sept. 16-18, 2022! —Frank Sharkey
▼ 1972
This column includes news from the two-year Class of ’72 and the three-year Class of ’72-3. Hello, dear classmates. It’s always so special to have the opportunity to share with all of you some bits of class
news—and not only news, but frequently also interesting bits of commentary and reflection! From Palo Alto, Rich Mamelok reported, on the one hand: “Not a lot new here.” But then, on the other hand, he mentioned his increasing focus on poetry and reminded us of his ongoing work editing an anthology of poems by members of the Pegasus Physician Writers group at Stanford. Even a quick look at www.pegasusphysicians.com provides context. What a good example this is of how, even as many of us transition into professional retirement, we can find time to focus on other matters of interest—or even, as in Rich’s case, of beauty as well! From Stanford (thus not far from Rich!), Lucy Tompkins reflected on her usual summer stay in Montana, where, on the one hand, she was able to continue her work on Stanford Hospital’s COVID-19 epidemiology protocols from afar, while, at the same time, she was able to note how Montana’s COVID incidence, hospitalization, and death rates correlated with its vaccination rate and use of masks, both of which could be greatly improved. Now back in California, she is continuing to work mostly from home—with little company now, since the 2018 death of her well-known and beloved husband, Stan Falkow (except for her one dog and three cats!). She plans to work in Montana again next summer and hopes that some of us may be able to visit her there, in Hamilton, Mont., home of the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a state-of-the-art biomedical research facility that is famous for its work on, for example, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Q fever, Lyme disease, and more.
Class Secretaries 1967
Frank Sharkey
Dept. of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine UT Health - San Antonio 7703 Floyd Curl Drive San Antonio, TX 78229-3901 sharkyf@uthscsa.edu
1968
William H. Ramsey
49 Cranberry Lane Cheshire, CT 06410-3504 williamramsey@sbcglobal.net
1969 Bill Rix
55 Audubon Way Auburn, NH 03032-3109 Home: 603-587-0248 rixwp@comcast.net
1970
Nigel Paneth
839 Wildwood Drive East Lansing, MI 48823-3048 Home: 517-351-9538 Cell: 517-290-5062 paneth@msu.edu
1971
Joe O’Donnell
PO Box 606 Grantham, NH 03753 joseph.odonnell@dartmouth.edu
1972
Eric Brenner
724 Holly Street Columbia, SC 29205-1852 803-799-6797 ebrenner@rocketmail.com WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 19
class notes
in person and virtually, which should make it possible for many or most of us to participate—an upcoming treat to which we can all look forward! —Eric Brenner
▼ 1973-74
Ben Barres ’79 was the first openly transgender member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
And from back east, in Barrington, R.I., we got word from Tracy Richardson, who reports that she is now retired after a career initially devoted to general pediatrics but then later to child and adolescent psychiatry. Having traveled some months ago to several countries in southern Africa, she is now interested in returning to Zimbabwe, where she has identified potential opportunities to contribute to the development of a pediatric clinic, as well as the possibility of assisting young local physicians who wish to seek further training opportunities in the U.S., in either pediatrics or public health. As for me, Eric Brenner, I had the special opportunity back in May to join hundreds of physicians (mostly from Switzerland, but some also from other countries) in signing a petition addressed to Director General Tedros of the World Health Organization, calling for the World Health Assembly to recognize the impact that global warming and climate change
20 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
may have on health! Increased recognition of this issue could strengthen actions that medical professionals and their partners can undertake regarding this now rapidly emerging matter. Sometime later, I had the opportunity to learn who in the United States had signed the petition, and it was a pleasure to see that two others who had signed were in fact Lucy Tompkins and Tracy Richardson, both mentioned above! Overall, it was a nice reminder of the varied ways in which we in the medical profession can contribute to promoting actions that at first might seem outside the scope of our training and work, but that are, in fact, important to promoting population health in the largest sense. Perhaps this is the kind of topic on which we might even have a session when we gather on Sept. 16-18, 2022, for our 50th reunion. Early information about the reunion (available at www.GeiselAlumni.org/reunion ) indicates that it will be held both
This column includes news from the two-year Class of ’73 and the three-year Class of ’73-4 Greetings from Minnesota. I wish everyone a healthy, normal, active 2022. We’ve had a very mild fall here, but it’s acting a bit more like winter as I write this column, just before Thanksgiving. I am grateful that my family is well, with kids thriving and grandkids growing up too fast. I received a very nice note from Don Raddatz that I’m glad to pass along: “Just a note to let you know that I, too, have joined the ranks of the gainfully retired as of January 2021. I’m filling my time with golf, household projects, nonprofit boards, fitness instruction, and enjoying the family. Our oldest daughter, Melissa, is an orthopaedic nurse practitioner in Raleigh, N.C.; daughter Gretchen teaches fitness classes around the country and lives in New York City; and son George is able to work remotely for Citibank in New York City. My wife, Kathy, retired recently from the State University of New York System. There’s so much more time to do things in retirement, but I don’t regret for a minute my many years as a rheumatologist. Hi to all our classmates. Take care, and I hope to see you in person at our 50th reunion in two years.” Thanks, Don. I hope I receive more notes from other classmates in 2022. —David Knopman
class notes
▼ 1975
Nancy Reynolds and I met at our combined Stanford 50th reunion. She is Stanford ’71, and I Stanford ’70. We laughed that we have three points of connection: we’re both Stanford alums, we’re both DMS’75s, and we both had careers in ob-gyn— yet we never knew each other. The late ’60s and early ’70s were tumultuous times. After majoring in cultural anthropology, Nancy picked up her science classes the year after she graduated from Stanford and was admitted to DMS 10 days before our classes started. Fortunately, someone in admissions found a room for her in a house near Occom Pond. She returned to Stanford for her last two years of medical school and her ob-gyn residency. Out of residency, Nancy joined an Oakland HMO with a single male ob-gyn who hired four female doctors and five female midwives. They cared for inner-city Oakland and Berkeley women who wanted midwifery births. She notes that only 6% of ob-gyns were women when she passed her oral boards in 1984. That number is now 60% and climbing. In 1989, her practice shifted to vacation coverage: “Have speculum, will travel.” She worked in Santa Rita Jail, La Clinica de la Raza, the Navajo Reservation, Highland Hospital, Fort Bragg, Vallejo, Marin, Lakeport, Eureka, and Crescent City. It was a unique career, serving women from many cultures. As she said, it was “a perfect meld of anthro and medicine, with admittance to powerful, sometimes terrifying and sacred births, surgery, and women’s reproductive
health.” She saw herself as a bridge, as midwifery practice transitioned from controversial to evidence-based care. Nancy married a fisherman, settled in Fort Bragg, Calif., and adopted a daughter, Haley, now 28. They renovated two homes, bought a boat, and sailed to Mexico during the winters while home-schooling Haley. Nancy retired on Labor Day 2015 and now focuses on history, ancestry, politics, and travel. She and her “jack-ofall-trades” husband, Dave, are now renovating a fishing shack on Lake Vermilion in northern Minnesota. Her family has always spent summers there. It was a real pleasure to get to know Nancy after all these years. I would be delighted to share your story or some news if you would write. We were a small class, but a noteworthy (pun intended) group of students. In closing, I would be remiss not to mention the loss of our beloved classmate Freddie Fu. Those of us who followed his career know that he was a remarkable physician. More important, those of us who were close to Freddie know that he was a very special person. Our condolences to his wife, Hilda Pang Fu, and two children, Gordon (Dartmouth ’99) and Joyce (Dartmouth ’03) and their families. —Oge Young
▼ 1979
In a feature titled “LGBTQ+ chemists you should know,” Chemical & Engineering News highlighted Ben Barres as “the first openly transgender member of the US National Academy of Sciences,”
Class Secretaries 1973
1979
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine Department of Neurology 200 First Street, SW Rochester, MN 55905-0001 Home: 507-288-7557 knopman@mayo.edu
8501 Chilte Pine Rd NW Albuquerque, NM 87120 dangellis@me.com
David Knopman
1974
Bill Thorwarth
4014 North Center St., Apt 204 Hickory, NC 28601 wthorwarth@gmail.com
1975
Oglesby Young 2 Rum Hill Road Concord, NH 03301-2556 ohpryoung@comcast.net
1976
We are currently seeking a new secretary for the Class of 1976 column. To learn more or to submit your update, please contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at (603) 646-5297 or Geisel.Alumni. Relations@Dartmouth.edu.
Dennis Angellis
1980
Celine M. Stahl
84 Pemberwick Road # A Greenwich, CT 06831-5044 Home: 203-622-8493 Cell: 203-536-5276 cmsdms1980@gmail.com
1981
Mark Lena
125 Bennoch Road Orono, ME 04473 Home: 207-866-3839 mlena@roadrunner.com
Daniel Lucey
420 7th Street NW Washington, DC 20004 Cell: 202-299-4398 daniel.lucey8@gmail.com
1977
Arminda Perez
3905 Highgrove Drive Dallas, TX 75220 Cell: 972-658-0474 armindaperez22@yahoo.com
1978
Peter R. Rogol
73 West Rock Ave New Haven, CT 06515 PROGOL48@gmail.com WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 21
class notes
and died of pancreatic cancer in 2017 at age 63. The full article is at dartgo. org/barresmed79. —Editor
▼ 1982
Top Left: Pat Edwards ’82 hosted Tamutenda Chidawanyika ’22 during Tamu’s surgery elective. Jean Frazier ’87 with her black lab Jazmin. L to R: Stephanie Lash ’87, Bob Hickey ’87, and Joan Breen. L to R: Drew Breen ’87 and Bob Hickey ’87. Bottom Right: Nia, granddaughter of Gary Doolittle ’87.
22 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
celebrating him “not just for his groundbreaking work on glial cells in the brain but also as a champion for women in science.” Born in 1954, Ben developed an early interest in science, “but because he presented as a girl, he was discouraged from taking math and science courses.” Nevertheless, he gained admission to MIT and then DMS. “In the early 1980s, while Barres was doing his neurology residency, glial cells in the brain caught his attention. Glial cells had previously been thought of simply as the brain’s biological glue, but Barres showed they play an active role in brain function. His work changed the way we understand the cells’ interactions with neurons. “Barres transitioned in his 40s and spoke openly about the sexism he had faced as a woman in science,” widely refuting the claim that lack of innate ability lies behind women’s low numbers in the sciences. He joined Stanford’s Department of Neurobiology in 1993, became its chair in 2008,
Hello, classmates. I don’t have any news from classmates unless I misplaced it, so I would really love to hear from you all. I’m thinking we’re approaching retirement, so it would be fun to hear what everyone is doing as what I call their “retirement job.” I don’t have any plans to retire or cut back yet, but I have decided to take more time with my patients by increasing visit time. It seems to be a nice opportunity to do this after the onset of the pandemic, and I find that people appreciate having more time to talk about their concerns about their children and the state of public health at the moment. Our office has started just this week vaccinating children age 5 to 11 years old with the Pfizer COVID vaccine. It is a very exciting time for us, as we feel that we are now part of the solution, doing more than just swabbing noses. We have seen an increase in positive COVID tests in teens and younger children now that the school year is back in full swing. This pandemic is something none of us has experience with, and we are learning as we go. I am hopeful that vaccinating children will help us get back to at least a more normal school experience. It all depends on whether parents accept the vaccine and have their children vaccinated. It would be very interesting to hear how the rest of you are coping with the pandemic on
class notes
both a personal and a practice level. You have my email address and my phone number, so don’t be afraid to reach out. —Pat Edwards
▼ 1987
Mike and I (Harper Randall) are up in Oregon as I write this, visiting with our two “kids” and their significant others for the Thanksgiving holiday. I feel very fortunate that we are all fully vaccinated and able to gather together with family and friends. A number of you sent in updates. Gary Doolittle retired at 68 this summer. He still fills in a day or two per month. His son, Geoff, whom many of us may remember from our DMS days, has a 6-month-old daughter, Nia. Gary sent this adorable picture of his granddaughter. Peter Mayer is still doing neurosurgery in Sarasota, Fla. He specializes in brain, spine, and peripheral nerve surgery. He is a clinical assistant professor at Florida State University School of Medicine and is currently head of neuro-oncology at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Peter and his wife, Jennifer Root Mayer, DMS’89, have three children, all of whom graduated from Dartmouth! If any of you follow him on Facebook, you know he has a sweet golden retriever. They have a small summer cottage on St. Joseph Island in Lake Huron, Ontario. Peter welcomes any of us who want to come by for a sail! Steve Genereaux and family are tolerating the warm winter. His farm is bustling with all sorts of animals. The chickens are laying less and eating more, he says, freeloading many days. All three of their
adult kids are in and out—no empty nest as of yet. Steve climbed Mount Moosilauke recently and manages to stay in shape with bike rides, runs, and hikes. Steve and his wife, Jamie, also spent a month in Ireland. Some of it was pure vacation and some was work as a GP covering for Irish GP practices. Steve’s family practice clinic in Wells River, Vt., is continuing to grow, and they were able to flex and adjust to the community’s needs (COVID testing, vaccination) over the past two years. But longstanding chronic issues—OB, Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT), hep C, behavioral health needs, etc.—did not go away. He delivered two babies in September, though he gave up c-section privileges last year. He has no retirement plans but is looking into getting more chunks of time off. Jean Frazier joined the faculty of UMass Medical School in 2008 as the vice chair of psychiatry and the division director of child and adolescent psychiatry. In 2015, she was also appointed executive director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center and then transitioned into that role exclusively in 2018. The center has a rich history of engaging in research, education, and service aimed at improving the quality of life for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities and for their families. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they have helped to launch programs to support individuals and families who were suffering due to lack of their usual daily structure, whether at their schools or at day programs. Jean really loves her work, the people she works with, and the people they serve. Jean has been with her spouse, Sherry, for 28 years. They spend their time between
their Cape Cod home and their place in Jamaica Plain, Mass. Jazmin, their four-year-old black Lab, gets them out of the house every day for walks. Great picture, Jean! They enjoy bicycling and have recently taken an interest in pickleball and golf. Anna Penna is excited to share that her son, Jonah, has been accepted to the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University! Anna and her fiancé, Mark Gatterdam, will be getting married in September of 2022! Lash (Stephanie “Tepi” Lash) visited with Bob Hickey and with Drew Breen and his wife, Joan Breen ’88, this past fall and shared some nice pics! Lastly, our 35th (!) DMS reunion will be the weekend of Sept. 16-18, 2022. I hope many of us will be able to attend! —Harper Randall
▼ 1988
Ted Gerstle was deported from Canada three years ago for not adequately embracing hockey, failing to drink enough Molson, and annoyingly ending every sentence with an affected “Eh?” During his lengthy stint in Toronto, Ted was director of surgical oncology at the Hospital for Sick Children, where he specialized in solid tumors of the chest and abdomen, particularly neuroblastomas. Ted found his way to the Big Apple, where, he writes, “We have started our fourth year in New York City. I am enjoying my position at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as the chief of the pediatric surgery service. The family has acclimated well to living on the Upper East Side of the city. Our daughter will be starting veterinary school, and our
Class Secretaries 1982
Patricia M. Edwards
5 Wheeler Road Bow, NH 03304-4213 Cell: 603-340-0796 drpatedwards@yahoo.com
1984
David L. Curran
8631 Sherwood Bluff Eden Prairie, MN 55347-3433 Cell: 612-868-8355 Work: 952-920-7001 ddcfak@gmail.com
1985
Laurie F. Draughon
8437 E Arroyo Seco Road Scottsdale, AZ 85266 Cell: 925-324-3919 lauriefd@yahoo.com
1986
We are currently seeking a new secretary for the Class of 1986 column. To learn more or to submit your update, please contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at (603) 646-5297 or Geisel.Alumni. Relations@dartmouth.edu.
1987
Harper Randall
4482 Fortuna Way Salt Lake City, UT 84124 HarperRandall@comcast.net
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 23
class notes
Top left: Sarah Johansen ’89/’90 with empanadas she made during Geisel’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. Laura Robertson ’89 welcomed new grandson James Duncan (in his SF sportswear). Amy Jane ’92 suited up to protect her obstetrics patients. Amy Jane ’92 with husband Ron and daughters Tess and Paige.
son will be starting college in September 2022. This will leave Lisa and me with no children in the apartment—what will we do? We will be pondering this question between now and next fall. Once the children are at school, we are contemplating a trip to Dartmouth to visit Aris and Fran—they do not know this yet; we hope to surprise them.” The secret is safe with me.
SHOUT OUT
1991
Andrea Hayes was appointed to the Chair of the Department of Surgery at Howard University. Hayes is the first woman to serve as the chair of surgery at Howard University. She will also serve as the associate director of the Cancer Center at Howard. Read more about her appointment here: dartgo.org/hayesmed91 Dr. Hayes is also the Geisel/DMS Class Day speaker for 2022.
24 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
They are especially hoping for a Strasenburgh Hall roommate reunion with Gary Edelman, a general surgeon in Wisconsin, and Greg Lockhart, a pediatric ER doc in Providence, R.I. Fran and I are happy to accept responsibility for sparking the interest of Ted’s daughter, Katie, in becoming a veterinarian. After leaving Hanover, both Ted and I continued our training in Hershey, Pa. We attended Katie’s first birthday party with our similarly aged son, John. Katie had a beautiful little white lamb birthday cake, into which she delicately dipped a hesitant finger to scoop up the tiniest amount of frosting. John saw the lamb, likely triggering the nascent Greek in him, and he began aggressively shoving fistfuls of cake into his mouth. Katie was traumatized. And thus a veterinarian was born.
class notes
Fran and I spent three wonderful weeks in Greece during September. You know you’re expendable when you can take three weeks off. We had a splendid time on the Aegean island of Naxos, eating and baking in the sun and enjoying a little ouzo here and there. Dawn Richardson, who works at same hospital that I’m at, recently asked me what ouzo was. I suggested she might try some after a particularly grueling shift in the ER. As I write this, 2021 is slowly winding down. Hopefully we’ll all turn the corner together soon. I’m looking forward to hearing and sharing more of your escapades in 2022! —Aris Damianos
▼ 1989
Weren’t we young whippersnappers, flying down mountains and engaging in liver rounds? Just back in the Bay Area from New York City is Grandma Laura Robertson (that’s right—Grandma!). In NYC, she welcomed James Duncan, a recent new member of her clan. Check out the attached photo of the Bay Area’s youngest loyal sports fan. Beside the wonderfully cute baby, Laura hardly looks the part. She sprints up San Francisco’s hills (the grandmother, that is), while yours truly is panting far behind. Then there’s the engagement of Misty Blanchette Porter’s daughter Ari. Wait! Wasn’t Ari just born? Ari is located in Colorado, where she is solving the country’s environmental problems. She has wisely opted to marry in September 2022 in Vermont. And Kerry Sullivan, ever-youthful, has announced
her very own engagement! Yes, she’s sporting an extremely large ring (for a surgeon), but she doesn’t plan to truly tie the knot until she’s retired, sometime in the far future. She’s having too, too much fun taking care of young ones as a pediatric surgeon or traipsing across the country to one of her many homes/cabins in Colorado or Rhode Island. Just like when she was my roommate, when we were residents in Boston so long ago, she’s always on the move. It’s about time she settled down. Also staying youthful is Jim Hartford, who writes that “none of the older surgeons seem to retire, so I’m still the junior partner in my practice.” Nonetheless, he says that he is living the empty-nester life, “with my son now returning to USC; 18 months of COVID lockdown living with his parents was a little too much for him to bear. He couldn’t wait to return to school.” Nary an engagement or grandchild in sight for yours truly. My two sons, at 23 and 19, are too immersed in the tech world and university, respectively. We’re also not quite feeling like empty-nesters yet, because the guys seem to still be in and out of the house quite a bit. So there we are, Class of ’89— aging, but, really, just moving forward. Yet who would have pictured all this way back in m-school? —Helen Manber
▼ 1992
As of this June, we will have been doctors for 30 years—and 30 is a big number! Distressingly, I told my students that I could guarantee I have been working longer than
any of them have been alive— and, sadly, they didn’t look surprised! ;-) It was great to get some news from Lisa Peace Tito, who has invited us out for a mini-reunion in wine country, where she and Joe relocated several years ago: “We are getting back to more normal here. We still love living in Santa Rosa, Calif. I have been hiking all over, tasting at an occasional winery, and finally seeing live music, which has been great! Went to Bottle Rock in Napa and Outside Lands in San Francisco this fall—both great, three-day music festivals. We are busy at work catching up. Women are slowly coming back for mammograms, and I am busy operating on the breast cancers we are finally diagnosing. “Ally, our 15-year-old, is loving going to high school live, as she spent freshman year at home. Chris, age 23, just moved into his own apartment! Joe and I are closer to being empty-nesters!” And, in almost-emptynest news, I heard from Amy Jane Cadieux, who also sent pictures, which will hopefully be included here if I uploaded them properly. “In obstetrics, we did not have many cases of COVID during the initial year, because all of our patients were sheltering in place and children were out of school. Now that the world is open, we are experiencing quite a bit of COVID in our pregnant patients. It is frightening. “Just became chairman of ob-gyn at Phoenixville Hospital, a community hospital outside of Philadelphia, owned by Tower Health, which is having financial trouble. It is all quite challenging! They have announced a new strategic alliance with UPenn, and I’m
Class Secretaries 1988
Aris Damianos
8 Winterberry Lane North Hampton, NH 03862 Home: 603-964-3798 adamianos@comcast.net
1989
Helen S. Manber
3838 California Street, Suite 308 San Francisco, CA 94121 Work: 415-668-4100 hmanber@gmail.com
1990
E. James Wright III
Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Ctr. Urology, 301 Building 4940 Eastern Avenue Baltimore, MD 21224-2735 Work: 410-550-7739 ejwright1@gmail.com
1991
We are currently seeking a new secretary for the Class of 1991 column. To learn more or to submit your update, please contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at (603) 646-5297 or Geisel.Alumni. Relations@dartmouth.edu.
1992
Anna Vouros
106 Elm Street Concord, MA 01742 Cell: 617-320-0659 avouros@partners.org
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 25
class notes
(L to R) Andy Auerbach ’92 and Paul Cardosi ’92
26 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
praying for great things! “Ron is doing great and finally returning to international travel for security, as before. Tess has just been offered two dance positions on cruise ships, and we are currently deciding which one has the best approach to COVID safety. Paige is in her third year of a five-year combined physician assistant program at DeSales. With all of her fourcolor pens and highlighters, she reminds me of me! “To escape some of the insanity, we purchased a fixer-upper on a lake in the blue mountains of Pennsylvania, and Ron is doing amazing renovation work! It is such a wonderful place to escape to and find a little peace in the middle of all of this mayhem!” If anyone can turn a hospital around and handle chaos, it’s Amy Jane! I was also delighted to hear from Will Lee, who sent along his greetings and a link to his concierge high-risk IVF program in NYC: www.highriskfertility.com. Be sure to check it out. I’m glad that his practice continues to thrive after tough times in New York these past couple of years. I recently had the pleasure of seeing one of our classmates in person! After months of no travel, Chris Colwell was in Boston for an emergency medicine conference and presentation; he told me he saw Andy Perron there as well (I was not as lucky, though did have a great chat with Andy by phone). Chris has two sons in college and a daughter still in high school. It was great catching up while he was here. Andy and Betsy’s four kids are all out of the house, so they can be footloose and fancy-free. Eric Dahms offered some news and a rebuttal to Andy Perron’s recollection in the last column, and I promised I would share his input: “Reflecting
back on the game-winning three-point shot that Andy Perron mentioned hitting over me, which is still simply known as ‘The Shot’ at Dartmouth, it really was the beginning of my downward spiral. ‘The Shot’ was the main reason I never attended class, as I simply couldn’t face the constant ridicule of my classmates. Actually, I honestly don’t even remember Andy playing basketball, but I am so happy that he has been able to create an athletic highlight in his own mind. The only bad basketball memory I have from our time at Dartmouth was Chris Colwell knocking on my door at 3:00 a.m. and singing the Michigan fight song after they won the national championship. “I’m still living the California dream as a hospitalist, working with residents, and have three kids in high school, the oldest looking at colleges. The upward mobility I achieved by marrying a radiologist has come to a screeching halt, as Kathy only works occasional locums shifts in order to concentrate on being a full-time mom. I miss our amazing class and am looking forward to the 30th reunion and a round of golf with Ben Potter.” And speaking of people who might have missed a class or two when we were in school, Paul Cardosi shared this news: “My eldest, Avery, is 23, graduated from Chapman University, and is applying to graduate school for sociology. Right now, she is working at the county health department, doing COVID testing, tracking, etc. Peter is 21 and a senior majoring in physics at Loyola Marymount University, and Elena is a freshman at Redlands University in California. (They all chose sunny SoCal. Hmm.) Mimi is the county health officer and obviously very busy.
class notes
“Andy Perron was driving his son to college at Bates, I think. Better double-check that before printing it, as Andy is a Bowdoin man, so it could be a touchy subject—ha-ha. “It’s crazy to think that we are soon going to be in the phase of winding down a little bit. I’m going to 0.8 FTE in April—four days a week in clinic to three days a week. I’m replacing that with absolutely nothing! Woo-hoo! More time get out on the water and play with Jeff Albright!” If I recall correctly, Jeff skipped a few classes during skiing and windsurfing seasons (which I’m pretty sure are different). Paul also ran into Andy Auerbach and shared a picture— no one has changed . . . sort of :-)—and a reflection on the meetup: “Look who came by for a visit through Oregon! Andy and his son, Ben, came through town, and we got together to drink coffee (naturally) and hang out for a bit. Our kids got to meet each other, too! It’s been about 15 years since we saw each other in person, but it might as well have been yesterday.” I hope that everyone is holding up as COVID continues to present challenges for all of us. I am grateful that my family and friends have remained healthy, and I hope that the holidays went smoothly for all of you. Please keep in touch—and keep your calendars open for our 30th reunion, on Sept. 16-18, 2022. Stay well! —Anna Vouros
▼ 1996
Hello, classmates! A small but mighty (and heavily primary-care-oriented) group of us joined the virtual version of the reunion. (I had just bought
flights for the in-person gathering when it was cancelled—but luckily within 24 hours, so I was able to cancel the tickets.) We had an hour or so to chat with classmates, among the other events—not really long enough, but still such a joy. I took careful notes on what everyone is doing and completely lost them, so I had to ask people to supplement the details below. But it was really great to just talk and connect and reflect on how the amazing students we all shared those years with have turned into even more amazing, accomplished, passionate, brilliant people who are making the world better. I feel so honored and lucky to be among the group. Here are some details: Alison Samitt joined from Portland (or, as we say here in the Northwest, “the other Portland”). She is just starting a new role as the director of student affairs for the Tufts University School of MedicineMaine Track, a partnership between Maine Medical Center and Tufts University SOM, in which students spend their first year in Boston and their subsequent three years in Maine (hmm, sounds a little familiar). Previously, she was program director of the family medicine residency at Maine Medical Center, a role she held for 14 years. She adds: “I’m impressed with Geoff’s photo (see below); I have a hard time getting my family corralled for a photo of all of us. Besides, it just makes me feel short because both of my sons tower over me now (they are 6’1” and 5’8” and still growing!). My work update is accurate as of the time we met, but since then our department chair announced that she is leaving, so I’ve been asked to take on
the role of interim department chair of family medicine. I’ll be doing both jobs until a new permanent chair is hired. As for the home front, I live in Falmouth (a suburb of Portland) with my husband, Tony; my sons, Paul (HS senior) and Bennett (HS sophomore); and two very spoiled cats. My favorite activity, besides watching all of my sons’ sporting events and band concerts, is cross-country skiing. Any of you are invited to come join me on the trails!” We were also joined by Joe Olinger, representing the Midwest, who reports: “I am a family physician with North Shore University Health System in Gurnee, Ill., and a senior clinician and educator for medical students in their third- and fourth-year rotations in family medicine from the University of Chicago Medical School. I have been with the group for 17 years now and was in private practice before that—practicing low-risk obstetrics since my residency. My wife, Beth, is a registered nurse and recently went back into nursing at the onset of the pandemic. We are almost empty-nesters—hard to believe. My oldest daughter graduated from Skidmore College, middle daughter is premed at Providence College in Rhode Island, and my son recently committed to Ohio State University in early November for men’s gymnastics. We are hoping to travel more in the upcoming year. I was really looking forward to the DMS reunion in person this fall but it was still great to connect with all of you, and hopefully others will join in.” Continuing to move west, Radhika Ramanan joined in from San Francisco, where she is the associate program
Class Secretaries 1993
Robyn Jacobs
18 Justin Morrill Memorial Highway South Strafford, VT 05070 rjacobs@hygeiawomen.com
1994
Kristin Casale
94 Meadow Wood Dr. Greenwich, CT 06830 kpcasale@gmail.com
1995
Kristen O. Hansberry
6385 Oxbow Bend Chanhassen, MN 55317-9128 Home: 952-473-5500 Khansbe15@gmail.com
1996
Emily Transue
1248 22nd Avenue E Seattle, WA 98112-3535 emilytransue@gmail.com
1997
Lucille Vega
RI Healthcare Family Practice 962 Warwick Avenue Warwick, RI 02888-3650 Work: 401-383-7830 Cell: 401-301-9505 vegadirectmedical@gmail.com
1998
Rondall Lane
547 23rd Avenue, Unit A San Francisco, CA 94121 rondall.lane@ucsf.edu
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 27
class notes
Top left clockwise: Saxon Gilbert ’00 and wife Corynn in a familiar locale. Marc Hohman ’06 sporting Geisel swag on base in Kuwait. Danielle Lane, MD, Marilyn Ndukwe ’23, and Ron Lane ’98 met up during Marilyn’s away rotation in San Francisco. (L to R) From the class of 2000, we have Jen Eggers, Dave Chismark, Steve Gonzalez, Adrian Rossi, Gira Shah, Robyn Byer, and Kaushal Shah. Michael Betsy ’00 and extended family enjoying the green outdoors. Michael Betsy, Sr ’00, and Jr on a Dartmouth visit. Michael Betsy, Jr, outside the hallowed grounds Michael Betsy, Jr, son of Mike Betsy ’00, in football kit with Dartmouth coaches after his acceptance; Michael Betsy, Jr, will play Dartmouth football in 2022 to the delight of Mike Betsy, Sr ’00.
SHOUT OUT
2000
Jay Lemery was elected to the Institute of Medicine “for being a scholar, educator, and advocate on the effects of climate change on human health, with special focus on the impacts on vulnerable populations.”
28 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
class notes
director for the UC primary care residency program, as well as a professor of medicine. She also picked up an MPH at Harvard along the way (“picked up” is how that works, right?), has won a bunch of teaching awards, and has done research on topics including mentorship. She adds: “I took on a new position as director of mentoring and faculty development in our division. I love spending my days seeing my primary care patients and paying it forward to help others who are entering our field. Hoping that keeps my burnout at bay—or at least controlled. My greatest joy is my son, who is 15 and whom I’ve raised on my own since he was 2. Maybe my greatest accomplishment is that we still laugh a lot together.” Someone had to offset the primary-care juggernaut, and Geoff Chan bravely stepped into the role. He’s based in Collegeville, Pa., and reports: “Starting off with feeling like I’m utterly consumed by the Dark Side of the Force, I recently joined Bristol Myers Squibb this year as the development program lead for oral azacitidine, a treatment for myeloid malignancies. I started off being a specialist in treating myeloid malignancies, so I feel very lucky to be in a position to develop new treatments for this disease. I’ve been lucky in my pharma career to date, having helped bring glasdegib, eltrombopag, and ofatumumab to cancer patients to date, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. I’ve managed to retain some clinical skills by managing myeloma patients on a volunteer basis at the local Veterans Affairs hospital. My ego is held in check by my 10-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. For fun, I play competitive
tennis in local leagues here in the Philadelphia area. If you’re in the area, please drop me a line!” Hopefully next time we’ll be in person (looking at you, omicron!), and hopefully there will be many more of us. But thanks to those who joined; and for the others of you, if anyone is interested in creating another virtual chat opportunity sometime soon, just ping me and I’ll create a space. I hope you are all holding up under the stresses of COVID and everything else. These aren’t easy times for anyone; wishing the best to all of you. Warmly, Emily. —Emily Transue
▼ 2000
Hi, all. In June, Michael Betsy sent word that his son, Michael Jr., who is a high school senior this year, has been heavily recruited to play college football. He went on to say, “Following a call with the head coach, he accepted an offer from . . . Dartmouth! He has formally committed to attend and play football for Dartmouth starting in the fall of 2022 as a member of their Class of 2026. “Part of his recruitment there over the past few months has brought me back to Hanover for the first time in years. We’re headed up again tomorrow for the third time in as many months for a camp session. It’s just as beautiful as I’m sure we all remember it. And even nicer this time of year not covered in snow. “I just wanted to share that with my Dartmouth family. And I hope to see you all soon. Go Big Green!” Check out the photos Mike sent to accompany his update.
Class Secretaries 1999
Danielle Tobia Albushies 4 McNichol Lane Bow, NH 03304-5409 dalbushies@gmail.com
2000
Maya Mitchell Land
4904 Stonehedge Drive Santa Rosa, CA 95405 Cell: 707-800-5916 mayamland@gmail.com
2001
Jill Marple
102 Somers Place North Moorestown, NJ 08057 Cell: 856-495-8613 jill.a.marple.97@dartmouth.edu
2004
We are currently seeking a new secretary for the Class of 2004 column. To learn more or to submit your update, please contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at (603) 646-5297 or Geisel.Alumni. Relations@Dartmouth.edu.
2005
We are currently seeking a new secretary for the Class of 2005 column. To learn more or to submit your update, please contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at (603) 646-5297 or Geisel.Alumni. Relations@Dartmouth.edu.
2006
Katrina Mitchell
2002
4087B Foothill Rd Santa Barbara, CA 93110 kbm9002@me.com
2940 North East Cesar Chavez Blvd Portland, OR 97212 Home: 503-453-5879 vines.jennifer@gmail.com
2007
Jennifer Vines
2003
Blair Hammond
48 Monroe Avenue Larchmont, NY 10538 Home: 212-744-3944 blair.hammond@mssm.edu
Junko J. Ozao-Choy
Division of Surgical Oncology Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Assistant Professor of Surgery David Geffen School of Med. at UCLA 1000 W. Carson St., Box 25 Torrance, CA 90509 Work: 310-222-3033 jozao-choy@dhs.lacounty.gov
We are currently seeking a new secretary for the Class of 2007 column. To learn more or to submit your update, please contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at (603) 646-5297 or Geisel.Alumni. Relations@dartmouth.edu.
2008
Rebecca (Rotello) Craig 3137 Casa Bonita Dr. NE Albuquerque, NM 87111 rebecca.rotello@gmail.com
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class notes
We had a successful virtual reunion. It was wonderful to see everyone online. Even Pascale Anglade woke up at 3:00 a.m. in the UAE to join us. Some of you did gather in person and visit DMS, too. I hope to see you all in person before 2030. Stay safe, and here’s hoping 2022 is a better year for all. —Maya Mitchell Land
▼ 2011
SHOUT OUT
2009
Gerard Carroll recently won a heroism award from the Cherry Hill, N.J. Police Department. Read more about his heroic act here: dartgo.org/carrollmed09
30 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Top left clockwise: Abiodun Kukoyi ’11 with husband Sumo, daughter Anjie, and son Zunu. Laura Amar-Dolan ’11 and husband Adam with new daughter Julia. Avni and Tom Finn, both class of 2011, certainly have their hands full! Laura Amar-Dolan ’11, left, and Liz Killien ’11, right. Gerard Carroll ’09 receiving his Heroism Award. (L to R) Thayne, Katie, Perry, Wylie, Ruby, James ’11, Hazel, and Mack Thomas in Utah.
With 2021 drawing to a close as I (Abi Kukoyi) write this, it’s good to have an opportunity to reach out to you all and take stock of the last 10 years since we graduated from medical school, as well as of the unprecedented events of the last two years. I’m grateful for life and good health. I remain in Atlanta, Ga., practicing pulmonary and critical care medicine at Emory. The pandemic definitely took a physical and mental toll on my colleagues and me, but it somehow also rejuvenated my interest in the field. I continue to enjoy working with medical students, residents, and fellows—they keep me on my toes. My husband, Sumo, and I now have a 3.5-year-old daughter, Anjie, and a 1-year-old son, Zunu. James Thomas sends greetings from Utah: “Things are going well for Katie and me. We have six kids now, and Wylie, our oldest, turned 13 today. It is always fun to look back at his baby photos and remember all the great times we had at Dartmouth. Ruby is 11, Thayne is 9, Hazel is 6, Mack is 4, and Perry is 18 months. I am still working at the University of Utah as a neonatologist and also working on global health projects, mostly in Nepal, India,
class notes
and Kenya. We are keeping ourselves very busy these days with kids’ activities but also find ways to get outside. We were disappointed that we could not get back for a reunion but love keeping up with how everyone is doing. Thanks for helping us all stay in touch.” It’s really hard to believe little Wylie from back in the day is now a teenager! Laura Amar-Dolan also sends her regards, from Maine: “I live in Portland, Maine, with my husband, Adam, and our two daughters—Ella, who is 3 years old, and Julia, who is 2 weeks old (she was born on Nov. 16). I completed my fellowship in pediatric critical care at Boston Children’s Hospital two years ago and am an attending in the PICU at Maine Medical Center. We are loving being back home in Maine!’’ Tom and Avni Finn just moved to Nashville and are both starting jobs at Vanderbilt. “It’s been a big transition, especially with a new little baby boy, who is 6 months now, and getting our 3-year-old girl used to a new home and school. But so far so good—it’s been great!’ Erin (Sullivan) DeMartino also sends her love. She has her hands full with work in pulmonary and critical care medicine and two kids under 5 as well! Despite not being able to gather in Hanover for our 10th reunion, it’s been great to hear from so many of you! —Abi Kukoyi
▼ 2012
Dearest classmates, I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and cheers for a brighter 2022. Reminder: We
will be celebrating our 10th reunion on Sept. 16-18, 2022! I hope to see many of you there. The lovely lady Kendal Farrar reports: “Hope all is well with you and the fam! I initially matched into ob-gyn, but I actually went through the Match process a second time a year later (because ERAS was so much fun the first time) and matched into emergency medicine, and so now I’m rockin’ out in the ED in Minneapolis (where we are also getting crushed by COVID). I keep an eye out for Tony Zitek and Steve DeWitt whenever I’m at an EM conference, but so far no luck. I’m dividing my time between the ED, quality improvement work, the two kiddos (Jack, 3, and Anna, 2), and Dr. Glaucomflecken’s tweets (aka our very own Will Flanery, who I’m pretty sure speaks for our generation of physicians). All is well—just eagerly awaiting vaccine approval for the kids and for a stop to the spread of misinformation to the masses. One of those things might come faster than the other. Thanks for checking in and keeping us all connected! Kendal :-)” Mysha Mason writes: “Hope all is well with you these days and that you’re surviving all the COVID craziness! The biggest update for me is that I got engaged in July and will be getting married in Glacier in October. Still working as a hospitalist at Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs—and also serving as the medical director of quality for the hospital and taking over as the chair of the medicine and critical care service line in January. Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!” Sending you lots of love and hope to see many of you next
September. Please stay healthy. With love, —Kolene Bailey
▼ 2014
Dear Geisel Class of 2014, I send you best wishes from New York, where the weather is changing and the hustle and bustle of the holiday season is in full swing. It’s always wonderful to hear about what’s going on in your lives—so on to some updates! Katia Alexander and Tom Slawski welcomed son Sam Alexander Slawski on June 23, 2021. Katia is an emergency physician at a community hospital in Baltimore, Md. David Goldenberg writes, “I am currently working as a gastroenterologist at Stanford, where I get to teach medical students and trainees at all levels. My wife, Brittni, and I spend most of our free time chasing our 2-year-old son, Micah, around local trails and parks that never freeze. Here is a picture of us at Yosemite. Micah insists on bringing a toy car on all of his adventures. Let me know if you are ever up in NorCal!” Ariel LeRoy writes, “Mitch and I welcomed our first baby boy, Aiden, this August.” Steph Rolin recently received an NIMH K23 grant, which provides five years of research and career development support. “My research focus is creating community-based interventions to reduce mass incarceration of people with serious mental illnesses,” she writes. “And I’m still at Columbia Psych, where we’re building a little Dartmouth med/Columbia psych family with four current residents from Dartmouth. I
Class Secretaries 2009
Kristen Telischak
725 Hobart Street Menlo Park, CA 94025 kristentelischak@gmail.com
2010
Sarah Dotters-Katz
1908 N Hawick Court Chapel Hill, NC 27516-7738 Home: 541-554-1817 sarahkd@gmail.com
2011
Jill Rosno Huded
8009 Cherokee Lane Leawood, KS 66206-1131 Jill.huded@gmail.com
Abiodun T. Kukoyi abbeykay@gmail.com
2012
Sarah Fink Kokko 53 Highbridge Road Lyme, NH 03768 Cell: 617-548-9198 s.k.fink@gmail.com
Kolene Bailey
6191 Massive Peak Circle Castle Rock, CO 80108 Cell: 603-209-1439 kolene.bailey@gmail.com
2013
Jill Kaspar Baird
2434 NE 58th Ave. Portland, OR 97213 Cell: 515-520-9899 jill.kaspar.baird@gmail.com
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class notes
Top left: Katia (Alexander) Slawski ’14 and husband Tom with new son Sam. David Goldenberg ’14 with wife Brittni and son Micah at Yosemite with trusty toy car in tow. (L to R) Jacob Perlson ’21, Jordan Wong ’19, Deirdre Caffrey ’20 with husband Yufeng, Steph Rolin ’14, and Jade Avery ’19 have some Dartmouth-Columbia bonding time. Libby Winton ’14 and husband Tyler welcomed daughter Eleanor into their lives this past spring. Ariel LeRoy ’14 and husband Mitch welcomed baby Aiden this August.
SHOUT OUT
2014
Karl Dietrich MPH’08 was named director of the planned Cheshire Medical Center Family Medicine Residency program. Read more about Dr. Dietrich here: dartgo.org/dietrichtdi08
32 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
class notes
have the Dartmouth/Columbia residents over for dinner every six months or so—here we are this past October.” Edmund Tsui also recently received a K23 career development award—his for $1.2 million from the NEI to study imaging biomarkers in pediatric uveitis. He is excited to continue advancing his career as a physician-scientist at the UCLA Stein Eye Institute. Cindy Tsai writes, “I transitioned from primary care to coaching and entrepreneurship full-time! I see coaching as a great way to optimize our health and well-being and coach others who are feeling stressed and overwhelmed to live a meaningful life with ease and joy. I blend all my training in integrative medicine, mindfulness, and other energy healing modalities (e.g., Reiki, EFT, emotion code, breath work) to empower people to believe in themselves and be successful living their best lives. Feel free to take a look at my website (cindytsaimd.com) and let me know if I can share anything else. Take care!” Libby Winton writes, “My husband, Tyler, and I are excited to share that we welcomed our daughter, Eleanor ‘Ellie’ Grace Winton, into our lives on June 25, 2021, in Charleston, S.C., where we reside. We are so in love and in awe of this special lady.” Until next time. —Justin Kim
▼ PHD & MS
This column includes news from alumni of the master’s and doctoral programs in Dartmouth’s biomedical science departments. Hello, everyone, and welcome to 2022. First, there was a picture missing from my
last column—see it on page 34! That’s me enjoying time with my family and my Jeep at Assateague Island National Park. This captures one of the best parts of living on the eastern shore of Maryland. My parents were right when they said time speeds up as you get older. I write these columns every six months, and the deadlines come up quickly. But I find it fulfilling and a source of energy. That comes from hearing what you’ve been doing and connecting with graduates I’d never have had an opportunity to meet. Whether you’re writing for the first time or have written in the past, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to update all of us. Here’s what I have for you this time: Lavinia Wingert (Molecular Biology MA’68) provides a welcome career-long update: “After receiving my PhD in crystallography from the University of Pittsburgh, I taught and published research until the Department of Crystallography was closed by the university. I went on to earn certifications in secondary science education in chemistry and biology through the Department of Education at Pitt and taught science at several private schools in Pittsburgh. While teaching, I spent my summers working at a camp where I developed a math and reading literacy program for underserved children. Now, my husband, Charlie, and I are very much enjoying our retirement!” Thank you, Lavinia for writing and letting us know how things are going. Enjoy your retirement, and please don’t wait so long to write again! David Sullivan (Physiology PhD’80—Wira Lab) says that, until recently, he was an associate professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard
Class Secretaries 2014
2020
PO Box 724 Mercer Island, WA 98040 206-512-6261 justinkim.dart@gmail.com
John.damianos94@gmail.com
Justin K. Kim
John Damianos W. John Porter
Wjohnporter4@gmail.com
2015
2021
1405 Crossfield Ave Kingston, ON K7P 0E7 Canada Cell: 603-359-2860 Chentang00@gmail.com
chad.y.lewis@gmail.com
Emma Tang
2016 Wenlu Gu
Wenlu.gu@gmail.com Home: 262-498-4995
Lynn K. Symonds
Lynn.k.symonds@gmail.com
2017
Chad Lewis
Gayathri Tummala
gtummala46@gmail.com
PHD & MS
Robert L. Joyner, PhD'98
TidalHealth Peninsula Regional Richard A. Henson Research Institute 100 East Carroll Street Salisbury, MD 21801 Work: 410-543-7017 Robert.Joyner@peninsula.org
Lovelee Brown
loveleebrown@gmail.com
2018
Alex Orfanos
Alexander_Orfanos@brown.edu
2019
Lye-Yeng Wong
Cell: 281-770-7568 wong.lyeyeng@gmail
Kathleen Leinweber
Kathleen.A.Leinweber@hitchcock.org
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class notes
Top: Bob Joyner PhD’98 and family with his Jeep on Assateague Island National Park. Krishna Gunturu HS’05-08, who Bob Joyner PhD’98 had a chance encounter with through a collaboration at his work.
SHOUT OUT
PhD
34 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Medical School and a senior scientist at the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston. “During my 38 years at those institutions,” he writes, “my research focused on the interrelationships between sex, sex steroids, and dry eye disease, as well as on the role of lubricin on the ocular surface. My studies involved basic, clinical, epidemiological, and translational aspects and led to authorship on over 260 scientific articles and 15 patents. I was awarded numerous research grants from the NIH and was a preceptor for 34 postdoctoral fellows.” He is also a founder, recent president, and current chair of the board of the Tear Film and Ocular Surface Society (TFOS—see www.tearfilm.org), a nonprofit created to advance the research, literacy, and educational aspects of tear film and ocular surface science
Barbara A. Vance, PhD’92, CRA, has been appointed as the Vice President of DartmouthHitchcock’s Office of Research Operations (ORO). In this recently revised role, Dr. Vance will oversee all research activities at DartmouthHitchcock.
throughout the world. Through TFOS, he has helped promote increased international awareness of external eye diseases, enhance government funding for tear film and ocular surface research, stimulate the development of therapeutic drugs and diagnostic devices, and influence the design and conduct of clinical trials of novel treatments for ocular surface disorders. TFOS also has a network with access to hundreds of thousands of eye care practitioners and researchers. Betty Lee (PharmacologyToxicology PhD’94) writes to say she’s had a busy year, despite the pandemic. She published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the brain and computer interface in the Federal Register in October of 2021; gave a virtual seminar on the biological export licensing process in September 2021; and was a speaker at the September 2021 virtual annual conference of the Department of Commerce. In November 2021, she was a judge for the third time at the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) Jamboree, which drew 166 undergraduate teams, 84 graduate teams, and 93 high school teams from 42 countries. The competition highlights the creativity of young scien-
class notes
tists and promotes the use of synthetic biology in solving the world’s problems. In December 2021, she was an invited panelist for a CDC webinar on import permits, giving a presentation on license processing for biological exports; there were more than 300 participants from academia and biotech. Betty, clearly you are not letting the pandemic slow you down! Stan Willenbring (Physiology PhD’95—Coombs Lab) let us know that he “wrote a book (fiction) for middleschool-age readers, but it’s not published yet. Oh, well. Other than that, I’m just hibernating like everyone else over 70 in the age of COVID.” Keep us updated on the book’s publication, Stan, so we can read it or recommend it to a friend. Jerod Denton (Physiology PhD’02—Leiter Lab) says he and his wife, Rebecca, and two sons, Parker (17) and Sawyer (13), are enjoying their 19th year of living in Nashville, Tenn. Rebecca is a professional photographer who focuses on food, product, and lifestyle photography. Parker, a senior at Hume Fogg, an academic magnet high school, is a talented artist and plans to attend art school for training in computer animation. Sawyer is an 8th-grader at Martin Luther King magnet school for math and science and enjoys playing basketball and golf and anything “tech.” Jerod is a professor of anesthesiology and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University and runs a research lab focusing on early-stage drug discovery and target validation for potassium and chloride channels. His lab is funded by the NIDDK, the NICHD, and partnerships with Ono Pharmaceuticals in Japan and Soleno Therapeutics in the
U.S. He is also director of ion channel pharmacology at the Vanderbilt Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery. Jerod, great to hear from you and learn about your accomplishments. Shannon Hinsa-Leasure (Microbiology and Immunology PhD’04—O’Toole Lab) writes to let us know that she was promoted to professor of biology at Grinnell College and has been teaching and conducting research with undergraduates for the past 14 years. Congratulations on your promotion, Shannon—welldeserved after 14 years and your work with undergraduates. Archana Murali (Molecular and Cellular Biology PhD’14— Dolph Lab) writes, “After 6.5 years in strategy consulting for the life sciences, I’ve finally moved to industry! I’m currently an associate director of corporate strategy and portfolio planning at Foundation Medicine Inc., a Roche affiliate. Our company focuses on molecular testing for cancer patients to help empower them and take action. In addition, we work closely with pharma partners to facilitate the development of precision medicines.” Congratulations, Archana. We look forward to hearing how your new job progresses. Thanks to everyone who wrote in—please keep the notes and pictures coming. There’s one final item of interest to this column—a chance meeting that I, Bob Joyner (Physiology PhD’98— Leiter Lab), had with Krishna Gunturu, whom we’re collaborating with on an oncology clinical research trial we’re starting at TidalHealth. Krishna is an oncologist at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center with a focus on the lung and melanoma.
She’s a Dartmouth residency alumna—she did her internal medicine residency from 2005 to 2008 at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and worked with Dr. Marc Ernstoff on melanoma research. She’s interested in cancer survivorship and immunotherapy toxicities and founded a multidisciplinary survivorship clinic. I thought I’d mention my chance meeting with Krishna, to show you never know when you’re going to meet and be able to collaborate with a fellow Dartmouth grad. Until next time—I hope everyone enjoyed this update, and I look forward to hearing from you for the next issue. —Bob Joyner
Class Secretaries TDI [CECS]
Tina E. Jackson, TDI'10
939 South Serrano Ave., Apt 403 Los Angeles, CA 90006 tina.e.jackson@gmail.com
▼ TDI
This column includes news from alumni of the master’s and doctoral programs of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (formerly the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences). Candice Weaver (MPH’05) started baking and decorating cookies as a fun hobby and stress-reliever a couple of years ago. She writes, “The next thing I knew, my cookies had gotten a following on social media, and I was one of only 40 cookiers nationwide who was invited to participate in the Food Network’s Christmas Cookie Challenge show!” Mabel Pillai (MPH’06) returned to California in the summer of 2021 after being in India for almost two years. She had planned to return to the U.S. in the summer of 2020, but the pandemic paused those plans. India had been locked down since March 24, 2020, so she, her husband, and two small children took advantage
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class notes
Top Row L to R: Anna Thomas MPH’05 was named Citizen of the Year by the Greater Manchester Chamber. Lynn (Chen) Hollaway MPH’07 delivered her first child, daughter Peyton, in August. Mabel Pillai MPH’06 with her family visiting California. Middle Row L to R: Allie Hurst MS’11 completed a Critical Care Transport Med Flight fellowship at UW-Madison. Mabel Pillai MPH’06 with her family visiting California. Bottom Row L to R: Candice Weaver MPH’05 with the cookie designs that caught the eye of the Food Network. Candice Weaver's impressive stack of "pancakes" and Charlie Brown inspired cookies.
SHOUT OUT
TDI
Anna Thomas MPH’05 Manchester, N.H. City Health Director, named the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year for leading with passion and a warrior spirit.
36 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
of everything California has to offer once they returned to the U.S.—including swimming lessons for the kids, playdates, and Disneyland. Lynn (Chen) Hollaway (MPH’07) delivered her first baby—a daughter, Peyton Hollaway—on Aug. 3, 2021. Annie Nguyen (MPH’07) was elected president of the American Academy of Health Behavior (AAHB), a national, multidisciplinary society of health behavior scholars. Her one-year term begins in March 2022, and she is excited to take on this role. Ruofan Yao (MPH’07) was selected to join the Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine’s Patient Safety and Quality Committee. The society, along with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, works to improve obstetric safety and quality through regular publications on practice guidelines and other tools to help standardize obstetrical practices nationwide. His three-year term began January 2022. Allie Hurst (MS’11) has joined the pediatric emergency medicine faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She completed a critical care
class notes
transport med flight fellowship at UW-Madison after doing a pediatric emergency medicine fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Colorado. She continues to race bikes and bake in her free time! Steven Powell (MPH’12) recently authored an article for Psychiatric Times about telehealth resources for seniors during the pandemic (see dartgo.org/powellmph12). Ashley Nguyen (MPH’18) was recently sworn in to the State Bar of California. She counseled Digit in its $212.9 million acquisition by Oportun (see dartgo.org/nguyenmph18). Zachary Wanken (MS’19) completed his vascular surgery residency at DHMC and became a member of the clinical faculty in the Section of Vascular Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis. Priya Khetarpal (MPH’20) went to work after her graduation from TDI for the FasterCures Center at the Milken Institute in Washington, D.C., working on their COVID-19 vaccine and treatment tracker. In August 2021, she left the Milken Institute to attend American University Washington College of Law, to pursue a JD in health law. —Tina Jackson
▼ RESIDENTS
& FELLOWS
This column includes news from alumni of the DHMC internship, residency, and fellowship programs. Bertrand Bordier (Internal Medicine ’64-66) wrote from Switzerland: “It’s nice to hear from a Dartmouth alumnus. I’m too old to be involved in the review but glad to send you all my best.” You’re never
too old to be included in the notes, Bertrand—that goes for everyone! Stephen Abram (Anesthesiology ’70-73) wrote: “After six years managing a sanctuary for elderly and unadoptable dogs, cats, and farm animals in St Augustine, Fla., we’re moving back to Wisconsin. We decided Wisconsin winters are less objectionable than Florida’s unrestricted growth, summer heat, flooding, poisonous snakes, fire ants, and hurricanes. We also found the exponential growth in Florida made access to quality health care difficult. We’ll continue our animal rescue activities (see www.anotherchanceranch.org) in Dodge County, Wisconsin, after our move in the spring. If we can put the pandemic behind us, I’ll consider volunteering with my former employer, Medical College of Wisconsin.” Gary Isley (Anesthesiology ’73-76) wrote that “2020-21 was a tough year for me and my wife. We both had COVID in January, and she passed away. She’d been struggling with Parkinson’s for many years. Fast-forward 11 months. I decided to spend my children’s inheritance and bought a Ferrari Italia. It gives me a great deal of pleasure (see photo). With my wife’s passing, I plan on reviving bicoastal living: five months rowing on the Connecticut in Lyme, N.H., then after the Head of the Charles Regatta, back to Coronado, Calif.” Susan Lisman (Surgery ’78-79) “retired from NewtonWellesley Hospital Dec. 31, 2019, and from Hawaii in February 2021. My husband and I purchased a home on Hilton Head Island in 2019, where we live half the year. We live the
other half in our home north of Boston.” William Minsinger (Surgery '78-80, Intensive Care '80-81) “fully retired in 2018 and now has more time for my other passion—weather. The Blue Hill Observatory in my old hometown, Milton, Mass., is a National Historic Landmark and United Nations Centennial Climate Station, with the longest-running climate record from one site in North America (see www.bluehill.org). I’ve been president of this nonprofit since 1980, and we were gratified to be awarded a Save America’s Treasures grant from the National Park Service through the Institute of Museum and Library Services. We can now digitize our 135-year handwritten climate record and conserve the annual books, making our datasets available worldwide. We’re still seeking matching funds to complete the project. This avocation is keeping me almost as busy as full-time orthopaedic practice!” Steven Kairys (Pediatrics ’78-82) was founding chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine and PI of a $16 million, seven-year project from CMMI—Integrating Care of Kids. Darrell Rauwerdink (Internal Medicine ’83-86) “just retired from a career in anesthesiology. Extended my Green link into next generation with son Adam Rauwerdink (Thayer PhD) and spouse Cocav Engman Rauwerdink (Internal Medicine and HematologyOncology ’04-10), and daughter Kristen Rauwerdink Root (Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine ’13-18) and spouse Brandon Root (Interventional Radiology ’12-19).” David Albala (General Surgery-Urology ’83-90) wrote:
Class Secretaries Residents & Fellows Robert M. Lewy
176 Upper Turnpike Road Norwich, VT 05055-9557 Home: 802-649-2194 lewyrob@hotmail.com
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class notes
Top: A small selection of the souls helped by Stephen Abram HS’70-73 through his animal sanctuary. Bottom L to R: Gary Isley HS’73-77 with his new Ferrari Italia. Pathologist Laura Tafe HS’04-08 elected President of the Association for Molecular Pathology. Dhaval Parikh HS’01-08 has been with Cardiovascular Consultants of Kansas since 2008.
SHOUT OUT
RESIDENTS & FELLOW
38 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Laura J. Tafe HS’04-08, associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine and assistant director of the Center for Clinical Genomics and Advanced Technologies (CGAT) at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, has been elected the president-elect of the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) and will assume the position of president in the fall of 2022.
class notes
“I was a general surgery-urology resident from 1983 until 1990. I just found out that I was ranked among the top 2% of scientists in the world in a May 2021Stanford University study (see dartgo.org/albalahs90). I just finished my seventh book as well. Looking forward to the surgical reunion next year!” Mark Wheeler (Internal Medicine ’86-89) wrote: “Retired and nearing our sixth year living in rural France—a good place to ride out the epidemic. Still pretty active in biotech, with projects in cancer detection and stroke. Involved in lots of local projects and the travel that was so (formerly) easy from here. Happy to hear from colleagues traveling through Brittany. Write me at Boogins_00@yahoo.com.” Jeff Gambach (Diagnostic Radiology ’99-03) wrote: “After DHMC, I completed a fellowship in musculoskeletal radiology under Dr. El-Khoury at the University of Iowa. I’m currently in my 18th year of practice with Minneapolis Radiology and have enjoyed most of the experience. The pandemic has impacted each of our areas differently; for me, the worst part has been seeing younger patients contracting COVID19 and suffering horribly. I’m always thanking colleagues for their frontline work. “Although radiology has kept me busy, it has been memories of the Upper Valley that keep me going at times. Despite (or perhaps because of) being Midwesterners from birth, my wife and I try to return to the Upper Valley each October with our children for the beauty, the hot chocolate, the Woodstock Inn, Molly’s, and a meal (or two) at Simon Pearce. “Recently, my practice was lucky to recruit another DHMC
radiologist. We did not overlap but had many of the same attendings. As often as we can, we share stories about DHMC. Good times. I’ll never forget one of my first body CT rotations. After readout, my attending radiologist (Department Chair Peter Spiegel MED’59) called me into his office to reread the transcription of an abdomenpelvis CT I’d dictated. During an uncomfortably long silence, after I couldn’t find an error in my report, Dr. Spiegel calmly said, ‘Jeff, it seems unlikely Mertyl (name changed for privacy) has a normal-appearing prostate.’ I never made that mistake again, and I smile often when reading CTs now. Thank you, Dr. Spiegel! And thank you to all my attendings who prepared me for practice!” Dhaval Parikh (Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and Cardiac Electrophysiology ’01-08) has been practicing electrophysiology at Cardiovascular Consultants of Kansas in Wichita since 2008. Kevin Fleming (Internal Medicine ’03-06) wrote: “Over the summer, I moved from Philadelphia to Tucson. I joined Northwest Medical Center as founding program director for an internal medicine residency that plans to start in July 2023. I look forward to everyone encouraging their med students to contact me if they’re interested in community-based internal medicine. More clinical and practical, less academic or research.” Laura Tafe (Anatomic and Clinical Pathology ’04-08), an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Geisel and assistant director of DHMC’s Center for Clinical Genomics and Advanced Technologies (CGAT), is president-elect of the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP).
She’ll assume the presidency in the fall of 2022, chairing the AMP board and executive committee, facilitating the evolution and implementation of the organization’s strategic plan, approving AMP public statements, and acting as an official AMP spokesperson. Founded in 1995, AMP provides structure and leadership to the field of molecular diagnostics. Gregory Tsongalis, director of the CGAT, said, “This outcome speaks volumes to the reputation that Dr. Tafe has in the field of molecular diagnostics and reflects highly on the impact of our clinical genomics program, our department, and our institution.” Fariha Sheikh (General Surgery ’15-18) is an assistant professor and assistant program director for the general surgery residency at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Ryan Smith (Psychiatry ’11-13) is chief of psychiatry and an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New
England College of Osteopathic Medicine and founding program director for the Portsmouth Regional Hospital psychiatry residency. Daniel Dustin (Internal Medicine ’17-20) wrote: “I have completed the first year of my pulmonary and critical care fellowship at Brown. It was an up-and-down year, but ultimately rewarding and further solidified my career choice. I’m getting married in September 2022 to my longtime partner, Emilia; we’re very excited for our future together. I stay in contact with a good portion of my graduating class; we reminisce about our experience at DHMC and how it helped shape us into the physicians we are today.” It was wonderful hearing from so many of you! Please keep sending in those updates—we’d all love to hear from you. —Bob Lewy
Obituary Listing The following deaths have been reported to us as of February 28, 2022. Obituaries are published on the medical school’s alumni website, at www.geiselalumni.org/obituaries. To report the death of an alumnus/a, please contact Annette Achilles at 603-646-5297 or Geisel.Alumni.Relations@ dartmouth.edu. ALUMNI Ralph E. Miller, Jr MED’59 Haig H. Kazakian, Jr MED’60 Robert P. Liberman MED’60 Murray A. Towle MED’61 Mark Horwich MED’65 Freddie H. K. Fu MED’75
HOUSESTAFF Matthew V. Hopkins HS'04-06 Stefan A. Loening HS'70-73
WWW.GEISELALUMNI.ORG | 39
The Book Shelf The Book Shelf offers a selection of books written by alumni within the last two years. These are neither endorsements nor critiques of the books.
COVID SCHMOVID: A Primer for Survival (2021) By Colleen E. Kelley MED’88 COVID SCHMOVID is a children’s picture book that validates children’s feelings about COVID-19 in a bright cheerful book depicting how children and adults can stay safe in their daily lives keeping the coronavirus at bay. As a mom, an ER physician, and an Air Force commander, it seemed we all needed a fun way to spread the word. The idea for the book arose from living with and working within the frustrations and inspirations brought about by COVID-19. This colorful book was inspired by the incredible work that co-workers at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center have done to keep our communities healthier, and was also inspired by the devotion and care provided by local support agencies. To help continue this support, all profits from the book will be shared with the Vermont Food Bank and the Greater Bennington Interfaith Community Services.
A Swarm in May (2021) By Mark Anthony Powers MED’77 The debut novel from a doctor and beekeeper, A Swarm in May weaves systemic racism, little league baseball, and the art and science of beekeeping into a riveting medical mystery. Dr. Phineas Mann has come a long way from the darkness in his past. He has a loving wife, two bright children, a lively interest in beekeeping, and a rewarding career in intensive care medicine. And then a challenging case presents: an elderly man in the throes of full-blown tetanus. To make a difficult case worse, the patient’s openly racist son abuses and threatens his father’s medical team, especially the Black intern. When inexplicable setbacks occur, the son’s threats escalate, and the darkness from Phineas’ past comes roaring into the present.
Monster Box (2019) By Diane Roston HS'86-90 In Monster Box, something happens that’s unimaginable, like a pandemic or a box turned bad. In this children’s picture book, Molly and her brother Ben learn how the unexpected can bring a neighborhood together. Beautifully illustrated by J. Moria Stephens, this gentle romp is a story for our time.
40 | SPRING 2022 | ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Pawns of the Wall: A Love Story (2019) By Derrik Woodbury MED’77, HS'79-82 Pawns of the Wall tells the story of a love triangle fractured by a mysterious murder. The pastoral border town of Patagonia, Arizona is already in turmoil from the new U.S. Government immigration policies. This murder connects many threads in a tapestry of intrigue and betrayal. Could the highest office of the U.S. Government sanction a pseudo-terrorist attack at the border to strengthen its base and secure continual political power? Would Russia aid the U.S. in a cover-up?
If you have written a book (please no textbooks) in the past two years and would like it considered for inclusion in a future issue of Alumni News & Notes, please submit a hi-res .JPG of the cover of the book, and a maximum 100 word summary utilizing this form: dartgo.org/bookshelf.
Making a Statement WITH THEIR ESTATE
“
We are truly delighted to make this gift. Some of my fondest memories of practicing medicine are with the Upper Valley. We care deeply about supporting the students studying oncology and the impact these studies will have on patient care.” James Couto, left, and Loren Lortscher D'69, HS'73-76, right
—Dr. Lortscher
by Mark L. Washburn]
Loren Lortscher, MD (D'69, HS'73-76) and James Couto are overwhelmed by the brilliance and energy of Dartmouth’s students. So much so that they decided to create a generous endowed fund in their estate plans for Geisel School of Medicine that will benefit oncology research for generations to come. Dr. Lortscher was an intern and resident in psychiatry at Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital for three years before moving to New York City to establish his private practice. Both Loren and James love learning about the newest developments on both the Dartmouth-Hitchcock campus and the Geisel campus.
Learn how you can create a legacy through a trust, a life income gift, or many other kinds of assets. Contact Katie Blackman, Director of Planned Giving Katherine.D.Blackman@dartmouth.edu, 603-646-5808, or visit DHGeiselPlannedGiving.org
Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 2 Hanover, NH
Office of Alumni Engagement One Medical Center Drive (HB 7070) Lebanon, NH 03756-0001
The Alumni Engagement Office has many events coming up soon for all alumni! Visit GeiselAlumni.org/Events to learn more and register.
1970 & 1971
50th Reunion
ALUMNI COUNCIL Meeting
ALUMNI AWARDS
CLASS DAY
Ceremony
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE Reunion
HANOVER, N.H.
HANOVER, N.H.
HANOVER, N.H.
HANOVER, N.H.
HANOVER, N.H.
M AY 2 0
M AY 2 0
M AY 2 0
M AY 2 8
JUN 10-1 9
PINNACLE SOCIETY
DERMATOLOGY
HANOVER, N.H.
HANOVER, N.H.
JUNE 28
J U LY 8 - 9
Luncheon
Reunion
20 E V E N T S 22 U P C O M I N G
Learn more at GeiselAlumni.org/Events
Reception
(see page 14)
(see page 18)
Reunion
NYC REGIONAL Event
DEPT. OF PSYCHIATRY Alumni Event
TBD
HANOVER & LEBANON, N.H.
HANOVER, N.H.
TBD
VIRTUAL
AU G 2 3
AU G 2 6 -2 7
S E P 1 7-1 9
OCT 5
OCT 2 6
HEALTH LEADERS CIRCLE
SURGERY Reunion
FALL