Alumni News & Notes — Fall 2024

Alumni

News & Notes Fall 2024

“ Seeing the suffering and the struggle that was going on was kind of like my wake-up call.

Something needs to be done. I need to start pulling my weight.”

Ifrah Ahmed MPH ’23

From Somalian Refugee to MPH Alumna pages 4-7

AI Enters Medical Curriculum pages 8-9

Targeting Cancer’s Most Wanted pages 10-12

Apps for Mental Health Care Access? pages 13-15

Incarcerated at Age 3, An Alumnus’ Story pages 16-21

Alumni

News & Notes PRODUCED BY THE OFFICE OF ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT

ALUMNI EDITOR Annette Achilles EXECUTIVE EDITOR Anne Holden MANAGING EDITOR Eva Botkin-Kowacki CONTRIBUTORS Eva Botkin-Kowacki Brian Buckley Ashley Festa Dana Cook Grossman Jeremy Martin CREATIVE DIRECTION Farah R. Doyle PHOTOGRAPHY Lars Blackmore Kata Sasvari Rob Strong Mark Washburn DESIGN & PRODUCTION Farah R. Doyle Linnea Spelman Laura M. Young Copyright Dartmouth College Fall 2024 (Vol. 29, No. 1)

Dear alumni and friends, In this issue of Alumni News & Notes, you’ll read about members of the community whose stories transcend the boundaries of job title, discipline, or institution. They are shining examples of how the care, learning, and discovery happening at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Dartmouth Health reverberates far beyond the Upper Valley.

As alumni, you know well how involvement in the academic medical community can evolve over time—from learner to alum, researcher, clinician, policy maker, educator, mentor, visiting speaker, entrepreneurial collaborator, volunteer, and perhaps back to learner again. Whatever your titles may be or have been, you are a lifelong member of the Dartmouth and Dartmouth Health community.

On the Alumni Engagement team, we aim to foster collaboration and connection beyond graduation day. You are a critical part of the academic medical community’s leadership in scientific and medical revolutions that transform human health around the globe. Over the coming months, you’ll notice more invitations from our team to events that will bring innovative minds from across our community together to tackle the biggest challenges in healthcare and to have difficult conversations that could lay the groundwork for a healthier world.

Our dean of Geisel, Duane A. Compton, PhD, deeply understands the importance of a collaborative, fluid, and interconnected ecosystem in our academic medical community. As we shared earlier this year, Duane’s service as dean will conclude when his term ends in June 2025, at which point he will continue to conduct research and teach at Geisel. A national search is underway for his successor. Under Duane’s leadership, Geisel is building the foundation for an even more porous and interdisciplinary future through new dual-degree programs, multidisciplinary departments, and growing initiatives that span our institutions.

CONTACT INFORMATION Office of Alumni Engagement Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth One Medical Center Drive, DH 7070 Lebanon, NH 03756 Tel: 603-646-5297

We want you to be a part of this endeavor. On the Alumni Engagement team—myself, Megan Dodge, Annette Achilles, and Amy Cramer—we love hearing from you. Please reach out to us to share your expertise, your accomplishments, and how your time in the Upper Valley helped shape the person and the professional you are today. What can we accomplish together?

Geisel.Alumni.Relations@dartmouth.edu D-H.Alumni.Relations@hitchcock.org GeiselAlumni.org DHGeiselGiving.org

With gratitude,

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Mae Leonard Director of Alumni Engagement Medical & Healthcare Advancement

A Message from Leadership uane A. Compton, PhD D Dean, Geisel School of Medicine oanne M. Conroy, MD, D ’77 J CEO and president, Dartmouth Health

Technological solutions are often touted for tackling the biggest challenges facing humankind, especially in healthcare. But often lost in that conversation are the humans behind those innovations. It is human ingenuity that has always been the driving force behind the advancements that make us healthier—and human ingenuity will always continue to be our greatest strength.

At Geisel School of Medicine and Dartmouth Health, we train the next generation of healthcare leaders to be innovators, leveraging tools already at their disposal and designing new ways to deliver world-class, compassionate care around the globe. We are pleased to share stories in this issue of Alumni News & Notes that highlight how our community advances human health while ensuring that “care” remains an essential component in healthcare.

who builds digital therapeutics to augment, not replace, the role of human care and fill critical gaps in mental health care.

We also highlight the pivotal role students and learners play in shaping healthcare’s future when they are empowered to drive meaningful change in their own education. Recognizing the growing presence of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in healthcare, Geisel medical student Soo Hwan Park ’25 noticed a gap in how future MDs At Geisel School of Medicine were being trained to use these and Dartmouth Health, we technologies. He spearheaded efforts to integrate AI training train the next generation into the curriculum and, thanks of healthcare leaders to be to his initiative, Geisel is now launching a preclinical program innovators. that prepares future clinicians to use AI effectively and ethically.

Our cover story features an alumna whose remarkable journey from a Somalian refugee camp to Geisel’s Master of Public Health program demonstrates the importance of humanity underpinning initiatives to improve global health. Through her nonprofit, Ifrah Ahmed MPH ’23, is tackling maternal and child health disparities, exemplifying the power of education to transform ideas into impactful solutions.

In this issue, we introduce you to the people behind groundbreaking innovations that solve daunting challenges to treatment, such as Dartmouth Cancer Center researchers who tackle a notoriously difficult-totarget protein that fuels unchecked cell growth. You will also meet Geisel associate professor Nick Jacobson, PhD,

This issue of Alumni News & Notes illustrates how our community of clinicians, researchers, learners, educators, and alumni thrive when presented with unprecedented challenges to human health. At Geisel and Dartmouth Health, we lead with humanity, shaping the next generation of healthcare leaders to have a deep dedication to advancing medicine and healthcare, and ensuring that care remains at the heart of treatment.

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ALUMNI PROFILE

From Somalian Refugee to MPH Alumna, She Tackles Disparities in Maternal Health When she was nine, Ifrah Ahmed MPH ’23 became a midwife’s assistant.

The job was just as informal as the maternal health clinic itself; the midwife was Ahmed’s mother, and the makeshift clinic was in their home in the middle of a Somalian refugee camp. But helping her mother care for other refugee women and children sparked something in young Ahmed that would later lead her to a career in public health.

Now, after graduating from the Master of Public Health (MPH) online/hybrid program at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Ahmed

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is working to keep refugees from succumbing to preventable diseases like she witnessed as a child caught in the crossfire of a war-torn nation. She’s also building a global nonprofit to address the maternal and child health challenges she has seen up close throughout her life.

“I got to see what it’s like to grow up with absolutely nothing, to a point where you get to realize that even clean water is a luxury, washing your hands is a luxury,” Ahmed says. “There are so many diseases in third-world countries that are very unfortunate and very easily preventable. You see mothers losing their kids. That is something that is from a broken health system.”

ALUMNI PROFILE

Ifrah Ahmed MPH ’23, second from left, eats with neighbors and friends in the refugee camp. Ahmed’s mother is all the way on the right.

Green Water and Makeshift Healthcare Ahmed herself wasn’t born in the refugee camp. Before war broke out, her mother was a midwife and her father was a veterinarian in Somalia. And then, in 1992, when she was just three years old, “boom, the civil war happened, the genocide happened, and we were forced to flee,” she says. The family fled Somalia, leaving everything behind, and landed in a refugee camp in Kenya.

In the camp, even the most basic healthcare and sanitation was secondary to survival, and that had dire consequences.

“Health becomes a priority if you have stability in your life,” Ahmed says.

Many of the devastating diseases Ahmed saw as a child likely could have been prevented by access to clean water and sanitation.

The only source of water was from a nearby stagnant lake, with water so green with bacteria that it had to be boiled—if you could afford charcoal for fires. But many couldn’t, so they drank the green water anyway and suffered the health consequences.

“I had a close member of my family die from typhoid, and at that point of time, I didn’t truly understand,” Ahmed recalls. “Later on, the more I got to know the disease, the more I got to hear about it and study it, I realized, ‘Oh wow, this could’ve been prevented.’”

With her expertise as a midwife, Ahmed’s mother did what she could to minimize the health risks for their family and others in the refugee camp. She started educating women on the importance of preventative care, and used her own knowledge and equipment to provide a safer, more sanitary way for women to give birth, boosting the chance of survival for both mother and child.

By the time she was nine, Ahmed was helping her mother, cleaning up before and after births, boiling water and sterilizing her mother’s tools.

“All of these impacts, I got to see them as a child. I grew up around disparities. I didn’t have to be told it, I lived it,” Ahmed says.

A Budding Public Health Worker Over time, United Nations community health workers would visit the refugee camp, and they piqued Ahmed’s curiosity.

She asked them questions about what they were doing and learned about public health, HIV and AIDS prevention, infection prevention, typhoid, and more. Ahmed and the UN workers also began to talk about female genital mutilation within the Somali community, and its impact on health in the camp.

There are so many diseases in third-world countries that are very unfortunate and very easily preventable. You see mothers losing their kids. That is something that is from a broken health system.

Ifrah Ahmed MPH ’23

Having completed some education at refugee camp schools and, on her mother’s urging, having done independent research at accessible libraries, Ahmed quickly became an unofficial liaison and translator for the UN community health workers. She practiced English with the visitors and would help coordinate health services and ration distribution for the UN World Food Programme.

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ALUMNI PROFILE

Later, as a refugee case manager through the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, Ahmed also traveled to another camp in Uganda.

“Somehow, even though it was a totally different country, a totally different camp, it was very much the same. The people looked different, but they had very similar struggles, similar history, similar stories.

People are just trying to find life again and try to make something out of themselves.”

Then in 2013, everything changed. Ahmed found out that her application to relocate to the United States was approved, and moved to Kansas.

That mindset stays with you for a long time, and you feel like, ‘I cannot go to the doctor until I’m really, really, really sick.’

Ifrah Ahmed MPH ’23

But moving to the U.S. didn’t stop Ahmed from working with refugees on health access and education. While pursuing a GED and later community college, she worked as a medical interpreter. She also continued to help connect people with care, going to their houses and talking through with them the best health services to meet their needs.

In conversations within the refugee community in the U.S., Ahmed saw that healthcare was still not being considered a priority.

“If you’re surviving, if you’re hustling to find something to eat for your kids or you don’t know what you’re going to eat tomorrow, you’re not going to think about going to the doctor or taking care of yourself,” she says. “Sometimes that mindset stays with you for a long time, and you feel like, ‘I cannot go to the doctor until I’m really, really, really sick.’”

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That realization prompted Ahmed to study psychology as an undergraduate, so she could equip herself to help refugees address the trauma associated with such an intense need to focus on survival.

While working as a behavioral analyst with children with autism in minority groups for the State of Minnesota, Ahmed felt called to return to public health. So she enrolled as a student in Geisel School of Medicine’s Hybrid/Online MPH program.

Hearing the Call and Building a Nonprofit At Dartmouth, Ahmed revisited healthcare challenges in sub-Saharan Africa through a different lens while on a trip to Rwanda with Geisel faculty and other members of her cohort. “Rwanda had a very similar history with Somalia—genocide and a broken healthcare system and having to build back up. Unfortunately, Somalia is not there yet, but it gave me an opportunity to compare between two countries what can be done.”

In the MPH program, Ahmed studied the long-term effects of untreated strep infections in children, and how they can develop into rheumatic heart disease, leaving those children to become adults with serious health challenges. In Rwanda, she observed that affected children’s main healthcare contact is with community health workers, underscoring the potential of public health initiatives to make a difference in a displaced, neglected community.

The trip not only added to Ahmed’s perspective on the impact community health workers can have in sub-Saharan countries in the wake of civil war, it also solidified her resolve to build a career in public health.

“Seeing the suffering and the struggle that was going on was kind of like my wake-up call,” she says. “Something needs to be done. I need to start pulling my weight.”

ALUMNI PROFILE

When Ahmed started studying public health at Geisel, she had long been toying with the idea of developing a nonprofit organization to address the maternal and child healthcare challenges she’d witnessed in her childhood. That was in the back of her mind when she began getting to know her classmates, some of whom became advisors and supporters as she scaffolded her plan to build such a nonprofit.

“The people that I met in the program, oh my god, they have been my rock,” Ahmed says. “It’s so many people who are doing different aspects [of public health]. We’re fighting different battles for the same goal.

The advice, the encouragement that I got, I don’t think I would’ve gotten that had I not been in the program.”

Now, while she’s working on putting the final touches on her plan to launch her nonprofit, the International Maternal Care Initiative, Ahmed is continuing to lean on her classmates from the Geisel MPH

program, and several are on the board of the organization.

Through the nonprofit, Ahmed aims to reduce mortality rates, improve health outcomes, and empower mothers and children in underserved communities by providing education about healthy behaviors, direct healthcare support and services, and advocacy for further support.

The organization will initially focus on communities Ahmed is already connected to, like those in Minnesota, with an eye toward expanding globally.

Ifrah Ahmed MPH ’23 studied how health workers might reduce the disease burden of rheumatic heart disease at the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali (CHUK) during a trip to Rwanda with Geisel School of Medicine in 2023.

In the meantime, Ahmed continues to work for the State of Minnesota, now as a program manager tackling HIV/AIDS prevention and diabetes, as well as serving as a liaison for refugee communities in the state. In that role, she organizes outreach events, and goes into rural communities to provide health education and connect people with services they need—just as she did many years ago in a Somalian refugee camp.

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ON CAMPUS

Geisel Launches AI-focused Curriculum to Train Digital Health Leaders When medical student Soo Hwan (Soo) Park ’25 came to Geisel School of Medicine, he noticed that the medical curriculum did not include courses involving digital health or the use of artificial intelligence (AI) models in patient care—and it concerned him.

Park recognized the growing presence of AI in healthcare fields, and he understood that future physicians would need to know how to use these tools, which can help medical practitioners provide more precise and more efficient patient care. The faculty and leadership at Geisel agreed with this evaluation of the future of AI in healthcare fields.

“The goal is to educate future physicians in the responsible use of AI and digital health in medical practice to improve patient outcomes and to build a cohort of leaders in the field,” says Thomas Thesen, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Medical Education and in the Department of Computer Science.

“Right now, engineering companies are mainly driving AI in healthcare, and we think it’s important that physicians are part of this process.”

Many of Park’s classmates already had some relevant education in data science, bioengineering, mathematics, and other fields. So he wanted to help Geisel close the gap between those backgrounds and the medical school curriculum. To get the ball rolling, Park collaborated with several of his classmates to launch a pilot curriculum called Digital Health Scholars in 2022 when he was a second-year student.

“We believed we could leverage our backgrounds and skillsets to create something consistent with the need for AI-driven healthcare,” Park says. “We wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of an integrational curriculum that introduced foundational AI concepts into preclinical curriculum for first-year students.”

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Ten first-year students enrolled in the non-credit elective course that ran in parallel with four existing curricular blocks: immunology, hematology, cardiology, and pulmonology. In the first portion of each block, students learned the high-level mechanism of an AI model (rather than the intricate mathematical workings) used in a research study pertaining to that block. Next, the course offered a live coding demonstration so the students could see the workings behind the AI model. Each block culminated in a presentation-discussion led by a speaker who was part of the relevant AI study.

The results of the student-driven research project, titled “Preparing healthcare leaders of the digital age with an integrative artificial intelligence curriculum” and published in the journal Medical Education Online, revealed there was a significant increase in the students’ perceived confidence in explaining AI-related topics after completing each block.

Park notes that although these AI models might not be part of every physician’s day-to-day role in patient care, the concepts will continue to become more relevant to the clinical landscape.

“There’s a growing need for physicians to become leaders in the intersection between medicine and technology. For example, they may work with technology companies to inform decisions about the ethics of how clinical data should be managed,” Park says. “There will be many opportunities for future physicians to engage in big data/AI-related medical work because they will be one of the primary users and eventually the evaluators of such technology.”

A Permanent Home for AI in the Curriculum Starting in the fall, the medical curriculum will formally include AI-related education as part of longitudinal

ON CAMPUS

Soo Hwan (Soo) Park ’25 led a research project testing a curriculum to introduce medical students to artificial intelligence healthcare tools in 2022.

“ There’s a growing need for physicians to become leaders in the intersection between medicine and technology.”

Soo Hwan (Soo) Park ’25

courses. Thesen is working together with Sonia Chimienti, MD, dean of Educational Affairs at Geisel, and others to develop the curriculum, which will run through all four years of medical school.

Chimienti notes that there are multiple ways AI technology can be embedded in the curriculum or incorporated into co-curricular experiences, including helping students learn the impact and the potential ethical challenges with the intersection of AI and data science in the healthcare ecosystem.

“We need to train physicians in a way that they can be expert diagnosticians and clinicians while also using artificial intelligence tools to help decision-making,” Chimienti says. “We have an extraordinary curriculum already; now, we’re thinking about empowering future physicians to advocate for patients as technology drives decision-making in healthcare—understanding both the benefits and limitations of technology, and how to apply these technologies in an equitable way in service of our patients.”

Students will also have access to AI study tools, Chimienti says. “Dr. Thesen has developed a chatbot for one of the pre-clerkship courses that can be used as a virtual tutor. Students can interact with the chatbot when it’s convenient for them, such as over the weekend when human tutors aren’t available,” she says. “It’s not replacing existing resources; rather it’s a technology-based supplement to the human touch.

The virtual tutor can identify gaps in knowledge and guide the student to course material or supplemental resources to help with their mastery of the material taught in class.”

Park, who will be contributing to the curriculum development from a student perspective, is excited that future students will participate in these educational experiences.

“Ultimately, the objectives of such tools are to improve patient care,” Park says. “It’s important to stay up-todate with technology and … to explore what roles physicians will hold regarding this growing intersection between AI and healthcare.”

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RESEARCH

CANCER’S MOST WANTED TARGET

The “Undruggable” MYC For decades, cancer researchers have been stymied by an elusive challenge: a gene that fuels unchecked cell growth. Myelocytomatosis oncogene (known as MYC) plays a role in most deadly tumors. Yet efforts to develop drugs to rein it in have consistently fallen short.

Now, a pair of Dartmouth scientists may have finally cracked the “MYC problem” in cancer.

Michael Cole, PhD, a professor in the department of molecular and systems biology at Geisel School of Medicine, and Ed Feris PhD, Guarini ’19, an experimental molecular medicine researcher in Cole’s lab, have devised an innovative new strategy to target this “undruggable” gene.

“This has been called the ‘most wanted’ targeted therapy,” says Feris. “Most large pharmaceutical companies in the world have an active MYC program. Here we have a gene that is overexpressed in 70% of all cancers. But how do you drug such an essential gene?”

The “Impossible” Problem Cole first recognized something unusual with MYC (pronounced “mick”) in virtually every tumor he examined in the early 1980s. In DNA surveys, Cole noticed MYC was sometimes located at different chromosomal positions, which scientists call being “translocated.”

Such rearrangement, he found, often accelerated MYC expression beyond healthy levels.

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RESEARCH

Cole’s groundbreaking discovery established MYC as a key oncogene—a gene that, when mutated or overexpressed, drives cancer. In healthy cells, MYC encodes a protein that sustains key biological processes such as regular cell growth and survival. When translocated and amplified, however, it causes those processes to run amok and contributes significantly to cancer development.

“In many cancer cells, the MYC gene gets duplicated and duplicated and duplicated. Suddenly, you have 10, even up to 100 copies of the MYC gene in a single cell which then makes too much protein. It’s like putting your foot on the accelerator and pushing it down to go 1,000 miles per hour,” Cole says.

But targeting translocated MYC has proven an “impossible” challenge, in Cole’s words. Part of the problem lies in how MYC binds tightly to DNA, making it inaccessible to traditional drug approaches. Another issue is that the protein MYC doesn’t have any small pockets—or binding sites—where drugs can easily attach and interact with it. This makes it challenging to develop drugs that can directly target the MYC protein.

And because the gene is a key regulator of cell behavior, “You can’t get rid of MYC or else you’re dead,” Cole states bluntly. “Every cell in the human body needs MYC.” To circumvent these problems, scientists have spent the last 20 years looking for ways to stop MYC from binding to DNA. Such efforts have thwarted “virtually everyone,” according to Feris.

Shining a Light on the “Impossible” While others were busy trying to target MYC’s DNA-binding proclivity, Cole was looking elsewhere. A region of the MYC protein, named “MYC Box 2,” caught his eye. He noticed that MYC Box 2 normally interacted with another protein called TRRAP. Disrupting the MYC-TRRAP interaction, Cole believed, could be the key to discovering a drug for the “undruggable.”

The question now was, how to find compounds that could do this?

This has been called the ‘most wanted’ targeted therapy. Most large pharmaceutical companies in the world have an active MYC program. Here we have a gene that is overexpressed in 70% of all cancers. But how do you drug such an essential gene?

Ed Feris PhD, Guarini ’19 Research Scientist Dartmouth Cancer Center

To answer this question, Feris sought to identify small molecule inhibitors that target the space between MYC and TRRAP. With advanced robotics and a novel light-based assay, he assayed over 50,000 compounds.

“Targeting the DNA binding domain of MYC is what most people have done. Our light-based technology makes it easier and faster to screen many different compounds to find the most promising ones that can disrupt the MYC-TRRAP interaction,” Feris says. “Nobody has ever attempted this approach.”

Right when the Dartmouth pair had developed this novel strategy for taking down cancer’s “most wanted” target, a new challenge quickly reared its head: Cole and Feris’ project required more resources than what a typical

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RESEARCH

academic lab could provide. They needed to not only to find funding, but also navigate the process of bringing their scientific breakthroughs from the lab into the real world for patients in need of new cancer therapies.

Dartmouth’s Innovations Accelerator for Cancer to the Rescue To keep their momentum, Cole and Feris joined Dartmouth’s Innovations Accelerator for Cancer (DIAC) program. DIAC was initiated by the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth to provide pilot funding for innovative projects and to instruct in crucial entrepreneurial training in how to commercialize innovations and connect with potential investors. Cole and Feris won the first $100,000 DIAC award in 2021, which enabled them to expand their research, to found an early-stage biotechnology start-up called cosMYC, and to begin a search for investors.

Michael Cole, PhD, a professor in the department of molecular and systems biology at Geisel School of Medicine.

After meeting with around 30 investors, the team completed a $6.2 million Series A funding round in October 2022 from a blue-chip biomedical investment group to support their MYC-targeting work. This also gave cosMYC the opportunity to manage the growing developments in their research and to expand their search to 500,000 compounds. The investment funding should allow them ample time to further their approach and test novel compounds to targeting MYC in cancer in an animal model.

In June 2024, cosMYC secured an Early Career Investigator Fast-Track Phase I/II STTR/SBIR $2.4 million award. “The grant will allow us to accelerate our timeline and expand the reach of our project. We are happy that this special NIH program exists and allows us access to nondilutive funding sources,” Feris says.

If successful, their work could lead to new therapies targeting the MYC protein—transforming what was once considered an “impossible problem” and “undruggable” cancer driver into an innovative solution, offering hope to millions of cancer patients.

To learn more about the Dartmouth Innovations Accelerator for Cancer, contact Erin Shreve at 603-646-5878 or Erin.Shreve@hitchcock.org.

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INNOVATION

Can Digital Therapeutics Help Solve the Mental Health Crisis?

Shortly after launching the project in 2012, Jacobson had a major epiphany—one that drives his work at CTBH to this day. “I realized with Mood Triggers, I’d [already] treated more people than I could have over an entire career as a full-time clinician,” he says. “That, to me, really spoke to the salience of how accessible and scalable these technologies are—and the potential impact they can have on society.”

Help for Everybody— Anywhere, Anytime For many patients, the limited availability of therapists can be an insurmountable challenge to receiving mental healthcare. Roughly 122 million Americans live in areas without enough mental health professionals. And more than 28 million U.S. adults with a mental illness are not getting treatment.

Few aspiring psychotherapists plan on building apps that mirror human sentience. “I originally set out thinking I was going to be a clinician,” says Nick Jacobson, PhD, an associate professor at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, reflecting on his student years. “That was going to be my impact on the world.”

Although Jacobson didn’t become a therapist, his original goal did lay the groundwork for a career in mental and behavioral health. Jacobson now works at Dartmouth’s Center for Technology and Behavioral Health (CTBH), where he designs cutting-edge digital therapeutics and AI-powered technologies to address the challenges in mental health treatment and accessibility. Jacobson’s work in digital mental health has garnered significant attention both locally and nationally, and he was a featured speaker at Dartmouth’s inaugural Innovation Summit in September.

Jacobson’s journey from therapy to technology began in graduate school, where he started developing Mood Triggers, a smartphone app that helps users identify triggers for their anxiety and depression by tracking daily moods and behaviors. Using smartphone sensor data, the app tracks symptoms and delivers personalized feedback to users on the factors influencing their mental health.

Those who do manage to connect with a therapist also often struggle to get help at critical times. “A lot of that, I think, is a scale problem,” Jacobson says.

While some evidence suggests technology is harmful to mental health and Jacobson openly acknowledges the risks, to him the ubiquity of devices is an opportunity for digital therapeutics to satisfy an urgent, often unmet need. “If that’s where [people] are, I’d rather meet them where they’re at than try to deliver something outside of it,” he says.

Such digital tools are typically designed to complement, not

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INNOVATION

The goal is to disseminate evidence-based interventions to those who need it—when they need it.

Nick Jacobson, PhD Associate Professor of Biomedical Data Science and Psychiatry, and Director of Treatment Development & Evaluation Core in the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, Geisel School of Medicine

replace, healthcare professionals. As Jacobson explains, these tools aim to “be constantly available” and provide support “when you would not be able to reach a provider.” They augment therapists’ work by providing additional resources between sessions, addressing the reality that in traditional care, you’re typically “seeing somebody less than 1% of their life,” he says. While adhering to the same ethical guidelines, confidentiality, and privacy principles as traditional therapy, these digital interventions incorporate data protection protocols and are developed based on established therapeutic approaches.

With this approach, CTBH’s digital health tools can provide timely, personalized support to a wider audience. “The goal is to disseminate evidence-based interventions to those who need it—when they need it.

And using generative AI in psychotherapy offers a great solution to the scalability and availability issues in mental health.”

Quality vs. Quantity For a machine to accurately emulate human psychotherapy requires researchers to train models on good data. Such input could run the gamut from online peer support interaction logs to psychotherapy training transcripts. After years of iterating with multiple forms of data, Jacobson had another epiphany. “It became clear to me that the data was the biggest governing problem more than anything else,” he says.

Quality data, he learned, was far more important than quantity in order to create safe, helpful content in the style and tone that adheres to evidence-based therapeutic principles. As a result, Jacobson organized a team to create the content for models to learn from so that they could guide and control the responses. “That’s when things got better and better and better.

So our secret sauce is ultimately the data.”

With this same ethos, Jacobson and his team trained the generative AI model for his newest venture, Therabot, beginning in 2019. While not a replacement for a human provider, Therabot is a chatbot that offers empirically supported treatment in a manner similar to a human therapist. So if it’s the middle of the night and you can’t sleep; if you’re in recovery but can’t connect with your sponsor; or if you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, but your next session

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isn’t for a few days, Therabot is available to you—24/7.

Stopping Mental Health Crises Before They Start At the heart of Jacobson’s technology is the recognition that traditional mental healthcare models both work and often fall short in meeting modern society’s needs. “A lot of the theories and models we work with are established in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). It really mirrors how people actually use psychotherapy, which is incredibly broad in terms of what concerns people from day to day,” he observes, underscoring the versatility and adaptability of digital interventions.

Predicting mental and behavioral health patterns is another advantage of digital therapeutics.

While human therapists can and do learn about their clients over time, predictive AI models can analyze data and behavioral activity to identify, manage, prevent, and treat mental health disorders and potential crises. Using passively collected data from smartphone sensors or wearables, “We can predict the severity, symptoms, and course of mental illness,” he says. “We can know when folks are in the greatest need, when things escalate or before they escalate, and then provide an empirically proven intervention strategy.”

The implications of these predictive capabilities are profound. One major goal of Jacobson’s lab is to “accurately predict the ebbs and flows of

INNOVATION

anxiety and depressive symptoms before they occur,” he says. This early detection could allow more timely interventions to prevent crises, reduce hospitalizations, and improve patient outcomes overall. With widespread adoption, such technology could enable proactive rather than reactive mental health care on a large scale.

How the Apps Change Users’ Habits The real challenge, in human and digital therapy, is changing behavior. This is why Jacobson deliberately designed Mood Triggers and Therabot to incorporate micro-doses of CBT techniques. Delivered through short videos and questions that can be easily integrated into daily life, both apps break down interventions into bite-sized steps that make it easier to see tangible progress. Like traditional therapy, Mood Triggers and Therabot encourage pro-social behavior, exercise, journaling, and scheduling time for activities they enjoy.

Trusting the process and harboring the expectation that an intervention could work, Jacobson says, are an absolute necessity for behavior change.

“The more a person understands what benefits them, the more they start to consider behavior change and are willing to give it a try,” he says. “Starting to get the ball rolling is often the harder thing than keeping it rolling.”

Once the ball does get rolling, users will often “develop interesting attachments to these digital tools.” Jacobson refers to this curious new rapport between humans and health technologies as “the digital working alliance.” Along with the belief that treatment will work, a healthy attachment to one’s therapist—or machine—is a strong indicator for successful treatment and a crucial factor in facilitating behavior change.

To strengthen this digital alliance, Jacobson has released and plans to continue releasing digital interventions to the public free of charge.

Meanwhile, Therabot is currently in its first clinical trial with several hundred test participants. “The ultimate goal is to disseminate this to as many people as possible,” Jacobson says.

With Mood Triggers, I’d [already] treated more people than I could have over an entire career as a full-time clinician.

Nick Jacobson, PhD Associate Professor of Biomedical Data Science and Psychiatry, and Director of Treatment Development & Evaluation Core in the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, Geisel School of Medicine

With demand for mental health services higher than ever, and millions of Americans forgoing treatment, digital therapeutics may not be the singular solution to the mental health crisis, but according to Jacobson, “They’re a solution.”

To learn more about the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, please contact Bethany Solomon at 603-646-5134 or Bethany.Solomon@hitchcock.org.

www.geiselalumni.org | 15

ALUMNI PROFILE

As a 3-Year-Old, He Was Incarcerated.

NOW, JOE OKIMOTO MD, D ’60, MED ’61 TELLS HIS STORY. When Joe Okimoto MD, D ’60, MED ’61 was three years old, he and his family were arrested. Soldiers carrying rifles showed up at their door and ordered him, his pregnant mother, his father, and two older siblings into the back of a military truck.

Okimoto was one of nearly 125,000 Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned as targets of the U.S. government’s racist policies during World War II. He spent the next three and a half years in an American concentration camp in the Arizona desert—simply for having Japanese ancestry.

Now, 82 years later, after a psychiatry career focused on helping others who had experienced trauma, Okimoto is telling his own story publicly so that the atrocity of the internment camps is neither forgotten nor perpetuated. This year, on the anniversary of the date that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which underpinned the incarceration of thousands of Japanese Americans, Okimoto spoke to the Dartmouth community in a Conversations That Matter event. For some of his classmates, it was the first time they heard details of his experience in the camp.

“Good people stayed silent” when the executive order was signed, Okimoto says, explaining that he sees it as his responsibility to share his story. “I shouldn’t remain silent.”

The Train to Trauma Anti-Japanese American racism didn’t begin when Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. That policy was riding on the back of escalating racism in the wake

16 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

War Department propaganda encouraged others to view anyone of Japanese ancestry as a threat. People lost their jobs and were forced to drop out of school.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury also froze some Japanese Americans’ bank accounts.

When Executive Order 9066 was signed on February 19, 1942, it granted the secretary of war and his commanders the power to relocate groups of people.

Although Japanese Americans were not explicitly mentioned, the order quickly became the basis upon which anyone of Japanese descent was forcibly removed from their homes.

Okimoto’s family was sent to Poston War Relocation Center, the second-largest of the 10 concentration camps, which held around 18,000 Japanese Americans, regardless of whether or not they were U.S. citizens by birth—and the majority were.

Okimoto says his older sister remembers her fear of the soldiers outside their home. But at just three years old, Okimoto’s own memory from that time is spotty. And after a career researching and treating trauma as a psychiatrist, Okimoto suspects his “brain refused to retain it”—as memory loss is an established trauma response.

One of Okimoto’s few memories from this time is of being on a train, likely when the family was transported from a temporary prison camp to Poston.

“You know how the train jerks when it stops and starts?” he says, remembering “suddenly having the sensation that the world was falling away from under my feet. That must have been the panic of this upheaval.”

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“ It would be stressful for a lot of people, but for me, it was an emergency.”

Joe Okimoto MD, D ’60, MED ’61

Joe Okimoto MD, D ’60, MED ’61 speaks at a Conversations That Matter event at Dartmouth about being imprisoned as a child during World War II at the Poston War Relocation Center. www.geiselalumni.org | 17

ALUMNI PROFILE

Joe Okimoto MD, D ’60, MED ’61 in Poston War Relocation Center at age 6.

The Okimoto family spent three months in what was euphemistically called “an assembly center” before being transported to Poston. In reality, it was the Santa Anita racetrack, its animal stalls converted into temporary prison cells. “They didn’t get rid of the stench of excrement,” Okimoto says. While the family was there, Okimoto’s mother gave birth to his younger brother. Two weeks later, they were sent to the permanent concentration camp in the Arizona desert: Poston.

the thousands of other Japanese Americans to be released.

There, the temperature ranged from 115 degrees Fahrenheit to below freezing, with sandstorms a constant threat. The barracks, which were divided into 20-footsquare quarters by blankets and sheets, were not much protection.

Hundreds of people shared toilet and shower facilities.

Even when the intensity of the racism abated after the family left San Diego for a small town, the experience of being incarcerated lingered. Looking back at memories through a psychiatrist’s eyes, Okimoto recognizes that he and his family exhibited symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

During Okimoto’s three and a half years there, in some ways, life was on hold. But in other ways, it marched on. Okimoto remembers having a tonsillectomy, and his brother recalls playing in the dust of the desert camp, fenced in by barbed wire.

From Concentration Camp to Medical Practice

Life After Imprisonment When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in December 1944 that the War Relocation Authority could not detain citizens who had not been charged with “disloyalty or subversiveness” for “longer than...necessary to separate the loyal from the disloyal,” this lay the groundwork for Okimoto and

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But it wasn’t until September 1945 that the Okimoto family was finally released. They made their way to San Diego to attempt to restart their lives.

Okimoto’s experience of racism didn’t end in San Diego. “There was considerable anti-Japanese racism,” he recalls. “We kids went to public schools, and we were called racial slurs and chased home.”

Okimoto says he found the elite environment of Dartmouth extremely stressful as an undergraduate in 1956. He didn’t look like the predominantly white student body, he came from a relatively poor family, and he was far behind academically. And that, the now-psychiatrist says, tapped into the psychological damage from his childhood.

“It would be stressful for a lot of people, but for me, it was an emergency,” he says.

“Children who have been

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traumatized early, their brain can be altered as adults,” says Okimoto, who has reviewed psychiatric research on the impact of trauma on children. He explains that early childhood trauma affects the amygdala, the part of the brain that handles the fight-or-flight reaction.

“In those who are traumatized, there is a hyperactivity of that amygdala. So there’s a tendency to interpret and react to things that are not truly crises as if they were.”

until I retired and began reflecting.”

In the early 1970s, Okimoto was appointed to Washington state’s first Commission for Asian American Affairs, and served as its first chair, advising the governor on how racism impacted the Asian American community. He also chaired the Asian Coalition for Equality, a community group that often joined in solidarity with African American civil rights organizations

Although Okimoto has “spent time on the couch,” in therapy, some of his own clients also helped him face the impact of his trauma. “Trauma is such a solitary experience—people don’t want to talk about it, and it’s difficult to only process it yourself,” he says.

“To have another person listen and understand is an important part of the healing.”

For many years, Okimoto, his family, and others who were subjected to the After graduating American confrom Dartmouth in centration camps 1960, Dartmouth Trauma is such a solitary experience— didn’t talk about Medical School in people don’t want to talk about it, and their shared trau1961, and Harvard matic experiences.

Medical School it’s difficult to only process it yourself.

“In most Japanese in 1963, Okimoto To have another person listen and American families, pursued a career in it was never talked surgery. Meanwhile, understand is an important part of the about. There was as the civil rights too much pain and movement of healing. shame,” Okimoto the 1960s grew, Joe Okimoto MD, D ’60, MED ’61 says. Until recently, he decided to “The only family join the fight for member I talked equality, which with about the incarceration was to protest institutional racism. prompted him to rethink his my sister.”

In his psychiatry career, Okimoto professional priorities. He left maintained a private practice in a surgery residency program to His sister, in her own healing, Seattle until his retirement in 2016, study health services delivery, began to dive into her memories conducting research in addition to and eventually ran a drug of the years at Poston, share that clinical practice. rehabilitation program, where memories with others, and he became deeply interested in research and preserve the When Okimoto began his psychiatry and human behavior. history of how the internment psychiatry career, his support for camps were built and what the Asian American community “Looking back at that transition, happened in them. became folded into his work, I think I was trying to figure partially in the form of a part-time out where I could address my In 2018, Okimoto accompanied role as medical director of an Asian own healing and trauma,” the her back to the site of their community mental health services accomplished psychiatrist reflects incarceration, Poston. He clinic in Seattle. In his private decades later. “Trauma has been expected long-buried memories psychiatry practice, he specialized a much greater factor in the to surface but they did not. “In in treating patients navigating trajectory of my life than I realized. a sense, I was disappointed,” challenges related to trauma.

I don’t think I really saw it that way

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some voices in opposition to our incarceration but not enough of a critical mass that could alter the decision,” he says. “Too many voices were silent and turned away from the reality of racism.”

Joe Okimoto MD, D ’60, MED ’61 and his wife, Jeanie, on campus in Hanover on February 19, 2024.

he says. “I was hoping that something would come up that would help me with what I was struggling with in terms of healing.”

‘Good People Can Contribute to Bad Policies’: Learning From The Past Like his sister, Okimoto is working to preserve and retell the story of Japanese American incarceration during World War II to not only navigate his own story, but to remind society of the factors that fueled the policies that saw families locked up, and to prevent history from repeating itself.

Okimoto has joined a Japanese American organization called Tsuru for Solidarity. Tsuru, he explains, is the Japanese word for crane, symbolizing healing. The group brings together people who survived the incarceration and their

20 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

descendants in both healing and in solidarity to speak out against injustices.

This is also why Okimoto is now telling the story of what happened to his family and thousands of others: “My current concern is that the contemporary political climate is such that certain segments of our society are voicing attitudes about immigrants and people of color very similar to those that contributed to my incarceration.”

Okimoto underscores the importance of recognizing how those who stayed silent when xenophobic or racist sentiments prevailed, or who perpetuated that hatred through art, propaganda, or everyday behaviors, contributed to a cultural era in which policies like Executive Order 9066 were signed.

“During that era, there were

At that time, another Dartmouth alumnus was making a name for himself: author and illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel D ’25, now commonly known by his pen name Dr. Seuss. Today, Geisel is most known for his books that frequently encourage equality and are used to teach kids about diversity, equality, inclusion, and kindness, such as, “The Sneetches and Other Stories,” and “Horton Hears a Who!”—which was published in 1954 and contains the famous line, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” But earlier in Geisel’s career as a cartoonist, during World War II, Okimoto notes, he created propaganda to support the U.S. military. Geisel’s estate, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, pulled six of his books from publication in 2021, stating that they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” Geisel died in 1991.

Okimoto reached out to Dartmouth to share his own story in light of this lesser-known part of Geisel’s history. “Of course his gift [to the medical school] is very important, but the negative part of his legacy should not be omitted,” Okimoto told institutional staff.

“Today, we are observing racism aimed at immigrant groups similar to what I faced during WWII,” Okimoto says. “This racism unfortunately demonstrates that

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The stories he shared not only remind us of the wrongs in history, but also serve as a learning opportunity for all of us on how we should treat our neighbors and fellow citizens.

Lisa McBride, PhD Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, Geisel School of Medicine

even otherwise good people can contribute to bad policies and that as a country we must be vigilant in confronting racism in any form.”

history, but also serve as a learning opportunity for all of us on how we should treat our neighbors and fellow citizens.”

Dialogues between Okimoto and the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement (DICE) at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth led to the Conversations that Matter event featuring Okimoto in February. The DICE office invited all alumni and Dartmouth at large to discuss ways in which our community can learn from injustices in the past to build a more inclusive, equitable, and just future.

McBride says that Okimoto’s message will stay with her and her team forever. “The DICE office aims to lead with compassion,” she says. “Our conversations with Dr. Okimoto reinforced our commitment to the work of dismantling the false belief in a hierarchy of human value, and to promoting truth, unity, and racial healing.”

“It was such a profound experience to hear Dr. Joseph Okimoto speak so we never forget the injustices inflicted upon innocent people who were incarcerated, treated like second-class citizens, and denied due process and equal protection guaranteed by the Constitution,” says Lisa McBride, PhD, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, who leads the DICE office at Geisel School of Medicine.

“Dr. Okimoto’s courageous words made us remember the dangers of casting stereotypes of Japanese people. The stories he shared not only remind us of the wrongs in

Joe Okimoto MD, D ’60, MED ’61 with his mother, Kirie, in San Diego before World War II.

Dartmouth looks quite different than it did in the 1950s, Okimoto said after speaking at the February event. “For me to look out in the audience and see the crowd and the diversity there, that was wonderful.” He adds that he feels a “deep appreciation for the educational opportunity that Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Medical School provided me before the advent of Affirmative Action programs in America. I realize that the Dartmouth education was a once-in-a-lifetime gift that changed the trajectory of my life.”

www.geiselalumni.org | 21

Book Shelf A selection of books written by alumni within the last few years.

Being featured here is neither an endorsement nor a critique.

Random Acts of Medicine (2023)

By Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD and Christopher Worsham MD, MPH, MED ’13 As two doctors who specialize in revealing how chance events can change medical outcomes, Anupam B. Jena and Christopher Worsham delve into the hidden forces that sway doctors, impact patients, and shape our health.

While the book offers case studies in coincidence, Jena and Worsham do more than offer readers colorful stories. They help us see the way our health is shaped by forces invisible to the untrained eye. Is there ever a good time to have a heart attack? Do you choose the veteran doctor or the rookie? Do you really need the surgery your doctor recommends? These questions are rife with significance; their impact can be life changing. Addressing them in a style that’s both animated and enlightening, Random Acts of Medicine empowers you to see past the white coat and find out what really makes medicine work—and how it could work better.

Ladies in Waiting: Finding the Joy in IVF (2024)

By Brita S. Reed Lucey MD, PsyD, MTD, D ’76, MED ’82 This book was written for women who are going through IVF as part of their family building.

Its mission is to help women find the joy in their treatment while they are waiting to become a parent. The author is a retired OB/GYN who currently works as a fertility therapist. She knows how patients grow psychologically by understanding their feelings of hope and fear during the ups and downs of their fertility journey. The book includes many patient stories that will resonate with women undergoing IVF.

Secrets From the World’s Most Productive Nurse Practitioner (2021)

By Jessica Reeves MSN, APRN, FNP-C, MPH ’19 Stop charting at nights and on weekends! In this book, the author shares the strategies she used to be able to close visits the same day 97-100% of the time, without running behind, and leave the clinic every day by 5 p.m. Learn her secrets for staying on track at work, maintaining your ideal work-life harmony, the questions to ask before you accept an offer that will let you know whether your potential new workplace views (and values) time the same way you do, and so much more.

22 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

BOOK SHELF

America the Fearful: Media and the Marketing of National Panics (2022)

By Benjamin Radford, MPH ’22 National panics about crime, immigrants, police, and societal degradation have been pervasive in the United States of the 21st century. Many of these fears begin as mere phantom fears, but are systematically amplified by social media, news media, bad actors, and even wellintentioned activists. There are numerous challenges facing the U.S., but Americans must sort through which fears are legitimate threats and which are amplified exaggerations. This book examines the role of fear in national panics and addresses why many Americans believe the country is in horrible shape and will continue to deteriorate (despite contradictory evidence). Political polarization, racism, sexism, economic inequality, and other social issues are examined. Combining media literacy, folklore, investigative journalism, psychology, neuroscience, and critical thinking approaches, this book reveals the powerful role that fear plays in clouding perceptions about the U.S.

The Problem of Practice Variation in Newborn Medicine (2022) Edited by Joseph Schulman, MD, MS ’98 This book challenges the belief that directing incrementally more resources at certain healthcare problems necessarily produces better results, and it provides requisite knowledge to understand the notion of unwarranted practice variation, how to recognize it, its ubiquity, and why it is generally undesirable—why narrowing its pervasiveness improves quality. The book begins by describing practice variation, its prevalence, and why it matters.

Next, it examines alternative conceptualizations of NICU work. One view is task-oriented, while the other is aim-oriented. NICU teams rarely articulate their aims explicitly, so this book offers examples that guide thinking and action. Finally, this book asks, “Which rate is ‘right’; what is the performance target?” This book gives readers tools to think critically about process, outcome, and quality measures, via some understanding of systems, risk-adjustment modeling, and discriminating signal from noise in process data.

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.

www.geiselalumni.org | 23

Class Notes If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates. Please reach out to the Office of Alumni Engagement at Geisel.Alumni.Engagement@ dartmouth.edu with any questions about class notes.

55

Since the last column, Ben Gilson has experienced another cardiac event.

A couple of years ago, he had his aortic valve replaced using a catheter technique (TAVR), with excellent results. Late last summer, at choir practice, he nearly fainted, could not stand up, and was taken to the hospital, where a workup revealed an infarction, though with minor inferior wall damage; two critical coronary stenoses were stented, and he was discharged home the same day.

We commented on the remarkable progress in the field; not too long ago, both procedures would have required a mid sternotomy, open heart surgery, and a week in the hospital.

He’s doing well, is fully active, and is again singing away, though no longer driving; he is very content with the lifestyle at Kendal.

Ted Gasteyer missed his usual winter sojourn on Sanibel Island, Florida, last year because his building had been inundated and sustained significant damage during Hurricane Ian in 2022, though his second-floor condo was spared. He is doing well, is in good health, and keeps busy in and around his home in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where his family is nearby.

Jay Chandler had knee surgery in mid-June—a revision of the right knee replacement he had done eight years ago; his left replacement is 20 years old and still working perfectly.

He is actively involved in his retirement community in Pennsylvania.

Unfortunately, Fleur is not, because of her Alzheimer’s disease, for which she needs round-the-clock care in the nursing facility. Jay is close by, living independently, a few steps away from

24 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

Fleur for his daily visits. He has served on a number of committees, including a stint chairing the healthcare advisory committee; he sings in the choir; and he frequently writes stories for publication in the local paper. In a recent one, he reminisced about his interactions as an eight-year-old with his father—a newspaper man in Chicago. He continues to send a variety of email offerings to his following, most recently a touching story about his surgeon’s intuition and a patient’s death premonition. These are just the latest examples of his sharp memory and gifted storytelling.

Far from being confined, Jay is on the move, recently paying family a visit in St. Louis, spending some time at the family camp in Ontario, and spending a week in the Dominican Republic.

Ross McIntyre has published another book—this one with the catchy title A Rooster Named Alice. The theme is a saga of buying, living in, and running a working farm of over 200 acres on the Connecticut River in Lyme, while working full-time as an academic hematologist and cancer center director at Dartmouth-Hitchcock. His descriptions of managing a herd of 27 cattle, learning to use the farm equipment, plowing the fields, timing when haying is done, and dealing with birthing crises and neighbors’ barn fires all bring out Ross’s engaging style of storytelling. On occasion, after dealing with one farm crisis or another, he says he felt like Clark Kent—quickly changing from farm duds to doctor duds and getting to his clinic just in time. As the farm grew, so did the involvement of the three McIntyre children; they got a unique education and became essential to the success of the operation.

After a dozen years on the farm, they

moved on, and so did Ross and Jean, to their new home a mile up the river.

Lamonte and Lloyd Tepper have enjoyed a late-winter vacation in Key West in recent years. This year, he contracted pneumonia in March, was “fading fast” according to his doctors, needed expert care immediately, and was rushed to Miami by ambulance. He spent 10 days in Mount Sinai Hospital, followed by a long stint in rehab. He says he has almost no memory of that flurry of events, except for the fact that Mount Sinai was “first class.” Now at home in Villanova, Pennsylvania, he’s doing well but is “still not quite up to par.”

John Crowe died last September from complications of the progressive dementia that had been visited on both him and Joan over the last few years. While at his beloved compound on Lake Kezar in Maine last August, he began to fail and was taken back to their assisted living facility in Pennsylvania, where he passed away.

His D ’54 obituary was unusually lengthy and detailed, describing his long career as a surgeon; teacher at Harvard and Tufts; chief of surgery at two hospitals; active member of many professional societies, state and national, and president or director of some; and loyal Dartmouth alum (three children and six grandchildren have attended Dartmouth). John was a prolific volunteer, including as a D ’54 class agent and president of his regional Dartmouth club. Within the past year, he was honored, during a granddaughter’s wedding, at a gathering of about 70 alumni. Ironically, I learned about John’s death just as I was about to give him a call and remind him of a conversation we had on the subject of death in 1955, as we were about to leave DMS for our final two years elsewhere. He said his preferred means of exit would be to choke on an olive at the bottom of a martini, on the poop deck of his yacht,

CLASS NOTES

Members of the class of 1961 in Hanover for a Conversations That Matter event featuring Joe Okimoto on February 19, 2024. From L to R: Don Bartlett, Bob Kenerson, Eric Sailer, Joe Okimoto, and Frank Virnelli.

and simply be tossed overboard. Alas, that was not to be, but it was a good example of his well-known, laid-back, dry sense of humor.

—John Moran

56 57 58 59 60

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Allen Root.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Alan Friedman.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Melvin Britton.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Thomas Aaberg.

I recently spoke with Helen and Lee Gilliatt, who are happily both recovered from their past medical issues and are enjoying hiking, Helen’s piano playing, and life in general.

I have also been corresponding with Bob Di Mauro, who states that his lung cancer has stabilized and he is doing well. He also sent some nice pictures with his three children, taken at the time of his birthday.

Stu Hanson continues to be busy with many projects. This year, he received a career achievement award from Geisel—the presentation of which was postponed last year when he broke his femur. Stu has also agreed to become the Dartmouth College Class of 1959 Secretary.

Bob Danielson reports that he is well.

Geisel has grown dramatically since 1960, with many changes that mostly seem to be very good.

—Barry Smith

61

Let’s start off with this very moving contribution from Joe Okimoto: “Jeanie and I were invited to Hanover by the medical school’s Department of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement (DICE) for me to participate in a Conversations That Matter event on February 19, 2024. For us elders who don’t do a lot of traveling, this was a cross-country challenge. But as it turned out, the trip was aided by happy gatherings along the way to Hanover. After flying into Boston, we were graciously hosted by Frank Virnelli and Judy Thomson, with dinner that evening in the company of two Dartmouth grads—Frank’s daughter, Suzanne, and my former roommate, Bob Kenerson. The next day

David Vaules ’61 shows off his many family connections to Dartmouth.

Frank and Judy drove us to Bedford, New Hampshire, where Linda and Sol Rockenmacher hosted us at a gathering of DMS ’61 classmates—Sol, Frank, and Dick Petrie—for a delicious brunch. During the gathering, Marty Weiss organized a Zoom for all of us plus David Vaules and Saul Roskes.

The gathering was like a mini-reunion of sorts, and I was grateful for the chance to relive our time at Dartmouth from the distance of time. Sometimes my memory does not adequately capture past experience and requires a stimulus of current interaction to trigger recall of the full experience.

Thanks especially to Linda and Sol for hosting us!

“DMS sent a car to pick us up at Sol and Linda’s house and delivered us to the Hanover Inn in short order. Dr. Lisa McBride and her staff in the DICE Office were very gracious in hosting us.

I was quite impressed with the diversity I saw on the campus, as well as during

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 25

CLASS NOTES

a tour of the med school! Things have changed a great deal since our day, and much for the better! The event was reasonably well attended, with a special section of DMS and DC classmates: Frank Virnelli, Eric Sailer, Don Bartlett, and Bob Kenerson (see the photo). This was the first opportunity I’ve had to tell the story at Dartmouth of my incarceration during WWII, and it was a memorable experience for me. I was very much touched by the support of my classmates. After the event, Eric and Don had arranged for us to grab a bite to eat at a restaurant, a fitting dessert for an eventful day! I want to thank all my classmates who supported me both in person and via technology on this journey! As I said before, the experience was a memorable one! Thanks so much! Joe.” Thank you, Joe! You and so many other Japanese Americans went through terrible experiences during World War II and managed to move ahead and contribute to our country and to the world in so many ways. Still, the story is difficult to tell.

Frank Virnelli sent in a fascinating family update: “This spring, Judy Thompson and I made a trip with a Dartmouth group to southern Italy, and I had the opportunity to visit the town where my father lived before emigrating to Boston, without any members of his family, when he was only 16. He returned to his hometown as a WWII pilot and visited his father, who was still living there. He was killed while he was flight-testing a plane in bad weather in 1945, so I never knew him or any of his relatives. It was a very moving experience to visit the town. My youngest son did some research a while ago and found that my father’s obituary was in The New York Times. It was a complete surprise to everyone in the family. He had started a flight school in Massachusetts in the early 1930s and was the co-founder of Mayflower Airlines, which eventually became part

26 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

of Northeast Airlines. Seventy years after he was killed, the meeting site of his Air National Guard Unit was named in his memory. Almost 40 members of my family attended the dedication.

Recently I visited Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, where my mother grew up. It was called the ‘City of Lakes’ before becoming part of Halifax. My mother had scars on her face from injuries caused by the 1917 explosion in Halifax Harbor. She was a widow for 53 years.

I don’t think that I ever appreciated how difficult it must have been for her to raise four young children as a single parent. It’s been a very interesting exploration of my family roots.”

Marty Weiss wrote: “Nothing new here.”

Now, news of some health issues: Yours truly just spent four weeks at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, dealing with cardiac issues (CAD, amyloidosis, and atrial fibrillation) as well as renal issues, and I am now on a three-day-a-week dialysis regimen.

I have the ongoing support of family (especially my dear Linda) and friends and am moving along.

While I was in the hospital, Linda ran into Don Bartlett, who wrote as follows: “Hi Sol, It was good to see you and Linda despite the circumstances.

I’m glad I ran into her in the hall. As you know by now, the chief ‘news’ from the Bartletts is that Chris fell out of bed and broke five ribs, and I have acquired some pulmonary fibrosis from amiodarone. Both of us are mending, and we hope to return to the status of more or less healthy 80-somethings.

It’s good that your dialysis program is now closer to home. I’m sure it was frustrating to be in Lebanon, despite the good care. Down with amyloidosis!

Cheers, Don.” David Vaules wrote: “I am sorry to hear about your health issues and hope they are stabilizing. My health issues seem to be fairly stable at this point.

The eighth and final Dartmouth family

member graduated this year. That leaves us with one more grandchild to graduate from Carnegie Mellon next year. We also will be attending our first grandchild wedding in July. The daughter of two alums, she attended Bates College and is currently teaching high school French. Martha is doing well and is an excellent care-giver. We celebrated our 65th anniversary in August.

We still live in Cooperstown, New York.

Be sure to note the photo David sent along—that’s quite the Dartmouth family listed on his shirt!”

And Eric Sailer wrote: “So sorry to hear of your health issues. I will be thinking of you and wish you the best.”

He shared with me his “Big plans this summer as we race the grim reaper! A week in the Adirondacks. Then fly-fishing for Atlantic salmon in Canada. In July, a major trip to Alaska. In August, off to a remote fishing camp with Elaine. Fall at the Jersey shore, where we go every fall. Trying to keep it interesting and spend my kids’ inheritance.

What did we save money for?”

Finally, it was sad to learn of the passing of Dick Preininger on October 17, 2023.

Please keep those cards and letters coming—and be safe and be well.

Thank you all for your healing thoughts.

—Sol Rockenmacher

62

First the sad news: Our classmate Georges Peter died on January 11, 2024.

He was a most loyal member of DMS ’62 and was one of just six classmates who were at our 60th reunion in September 2022. He retired in 2005 as founder and longtime head of the pediatric ID section at Brown Medical School. He edited five editions of the AAP’s Red Book guide to pediatric infectious diseases, an unheard-of number. The Red Book was dedicated to him in 1997 and again in 2003.

Whatever he started, he finished, quietly and modestly. He managed

CLASS NOTES

the scoreboard at Harvard stadium for 29 years, climbing six stories to do so for each home game. He competed in and won many sailing races over 60 years of racing, enjoying all his time on the water.

Georges was a man of distinction, honor, and integrity. He is deeply missed by his wife of 59 years, Carolyn McClintock Peter, and his family and friends. He is also very much missed by his DMS classmates for his understated wisdom, wit, and academic excellence.

RIP, Georges.

Valerie Leval Graham has moved to a CCRC (continuing care retirement community) in Charlotte, Vermont; she has lived in Charlotte since 1971.

Val, who celebrates turning 90 in 2024, belongs to a writing group that meets weekly via Zoom. She writes mostly poetry, some of which has been published.

Tom Ashby is currently in at least six different bands in upstate New York, keeping busy making music. Tom turned 86 earlier in 2024.

Doug Zipes is leading an online book club for members of the College Class of 1961. We meet every few months and discuss a book chosen by Doug. Interesting topics so far.

Shelly and I went on a 15-day trip in June to Bulgaria (don’t ask), Greece, and Macedonia. She describes the trip as “interesting.” My one word for it is “disappointing.”

May all your deeds promote the common good.

—Ted Tapper

63

The flow of information has been meager these past few months, so there’s not much to write about except for the usual NESS (Nine East South Street) roommate activities. We (Jack Babson, Roger Christian, Bill Couser, Ken Danielson, George Gewirtz, Gene Lariviere, and I, Alan Rozycki) Zoom monthly and have gathered at Seyon

Lodge State Park in Groton, Vermont, the past two autumns and plan to do it again this coming October. Paul Johnson might even join the group this fall. We’re all still fairly active, suffer our aches and pains with a reasonable amount of equanimity, and enjoy our time together. If you’re interested in participating in our monthly Zoom hour, drop me an email.

Stay well. Do good.

—Alan Rozycki

64

I heard from Lynne Hawkins, the wife of Harold Hawkins. Harold died at the end of 2020 of COVID. He was severely disabled from Parkinson’s, and they had been in an assisted living facility since 2012. Over the years, I had several phone chats with Harold when he called asking about classmates.

—Rich Edelson

65

If you have news to share, please contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at 603-646-5297 or Geisel.Alumni.

Relations@dartmouth.edu.

66

I must say, I have been surprised by the small number of contributions to our biennial collection of DMS ’66 information: There were only two, and they were not shared with all classmates, as has been the case over the past several years.

Sarah Donaldson offered quite a few interesting details about her past year. “Having resisted retirement forcefully, I am now approaching three years of this new journey. As I so enjoyed my working life, I am currently serving in a voluntary role as a retirement coach for a Stanford School of Medicine program designed for senior faculty who are considering retirement, since individual discussion can be useful before taking the step. This is really rewarding to me and keeps me connected on a schedule

that is under my control. And it has led to my new position at Stanford University as a member of the Emeriti/ ae Council, a program for emeriti/ae professors who wish to remain active, with specific programs and activities that use their talents. So I haven’t completely cut the tie but stay engaged in a much more manageable style, and it seems to be working well.”

Steve Sherman reports that he had a “nice chat with Jim Rini” at their 60th Dartmouth Class of ’64 reunion. “The campus is as lovely as ever, but the [Dana] Biomedical Library is no more.”

A review of the campus map shows it was replaced by the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies.

Strasenburgh Hall is no more as well, replaced by the very large Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center. I’m sure that those of us at our 50th reunion remember how much the campus had grown since our graduation—changed like nearly everything else over these post-DMS years.

Cheryl and I, John Davenport, have had another good year, spending most of our time together and with close friends from our local church.

Last April, we took our fifth Road Scholar trip, this time to southern Ireland. We started in Cork and Dublin; visited Trinity University, home of the Blarney Stone; and climbed the tower to the Blarney Stone, but did not kiss it. In June, we took a short drive down to Austin, Minnesota, to visit the Spam Museum, which was actually fascinating—a detailed review of the history of this food corporation from the 1890s

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 27

CLASS NOTES

through World War II. But we have no plans to add Spam to our diet.

Peace to all!

—John Davenport

67

Stephen Montgomery of Fremont, California, wrote: “I apologize for this very long overdue communication to my Dartmouth classmates. In short, after Harvard Medical School graduation, I did general surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, 1969–1973; then practiced emergency medicine as a board-certified emergency physician for nearly 40 years, personally seeing some quarter-million patients. I fully retired from the ED about 13 years ago. Never sued! I thank my lucky stars above. My love, Patricia, and I have lived in the same beautiful, large house on two acres in Fremont for nearly 40 years. Our four children are Maureen, Kevin, Stephen Jr., and Samuel. The oldest, Maureen, married with two little children, is a respiratory therapist; Kevin is a litigator-lawyer; Stephen Jr., an F22 pilot for some 20 active years, is now in the Air Force Reserves and a United Airlines pilot; and Samuel graduated from university, played professional baseball in the minors for three years, then went back to university to become a nurse practitioner. Thus far, I have six grandchildren. Now, at 82 years of age and fully retired, I finally gave up my active medical license and board certification. That act, for sure, was like giving up my identity and status. The good thing is I recently passed my eye and knowledge examinations at the state DMV, despite cataracts, to renew my driver’s license for five years. I am in good health, very active physically, go to the local gym, and do all the outside work on our two acres. There it is: my entire life in a nutshell. I wish you all well for the upcoming years.”

Rick Donn also checked in: “Miriam and I are doing well. We plan to spend

28 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

a week in Costa Rica with our daughter and granddaughter, plus her husband and in-laws, and are looking forward to water-gun fights with the kids. I saw several wonderful YouTube videos featuring Richard Kaiser’s son David, a professor of physics and history at MIT. David is a renaissance man who looks exactly like his dad. My note to him led to an email exchange with his mother, Debbie, who sounded well and is enjoying her children’s success, as well as their progeny.”

A telegraphic note came from Matt Liang: “Turned 80, impaired, and still kicking. I was kidnapped by surprise by my bride (same age) and kids and grandkids to spend Memorial Day weekend at Stinson Beach, Marin County, California. We both got our second COVID-19 illnesses, so quarantined in separate cottages. Now recovered, I am working on my spondylolisthesis. Getting older is not for sissies!”

David Bush volunteered two memories: “During the blackout of 1965, we were in the cadaver lab when the lights went out. Taking the bodies back to the freezer was . . . eerie. Like everyone else, I spent a night cramming anatomical facts into my mind for the dreaded final exam, when Harry Savage would pull out a note card and ask about the cranial nerves, the heart, or whatever. We (the famous team of Dick Reese, Dick Horner, Mike Passero, and yours truly) had a female cadaver. You guessed it, my card was “the male perineum.”

Phil Livingston reported: “Not much has changed—good news at our age. Lucy (DMS ’70) and I remain snowbirds between Manhattan; Bluffton, South Carolina; and July and August in Northfield, Massachusetts, and are pretty active in all three spots. Our one son, his wife, and our grandson are Australians, living in Brisbane, so traveling there every year for two weeks is our norm. We have loved getting together with you for reunions and opti-

mistically look forward to our 60th in three years. Y’all come back!”

Frank Sharkey wrote from Japan earlier this year: “I have just arrived in Kyoto. Next week, I’ll be leading a team to do lab inspections in Kyoto and the Tokyo area for the College of American Pathologists. So I am still active in that program. Still at UT-San Antonio.

Turned 80 this year, a bit of a shock; I enjoy seeing the surprised look when I tell people my age.”

—John J. Mulvihill

68 69 70 71 72

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary William H. Ramsey.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Bill Rix. If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Nigel Paneth.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Joe O’Donnell.

This column includes news from the two-year class of 1972 and the three-year class of 1972-3.

From Palo Alto, California, I received some tidbits from Rich Mamelok, who reports that back in March he had an unfortunate, serious bicycle crash, which resulted in several small fractures and sutures and even a concussion. Fortunately, he reports now being fully recovered so that in April he was able to attend the New Orleans Jazz Festival with his son. He also reports having seen Lucy Tompkins several times at performances of the San Francisco Symphony. It’s so nice that the two of them have these meeting opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area environs that they share.

CLASS NOTES

Karlann and Eric Brenner ’72 (left), former pathology professor Miguel Marin-Padilla (center), with Nancy and Fred Meier ’72 (right) at the Norwich Inn in 2017. Marin-Padilla passed away last year.

Lucy also reported in, noting that she was again heading for her usual summer stay in Montana (visit her as you pass through!). She was also completing her last year working for her infectious disease division at Stanford—and is thus considering various “Plan B” options that may follow.

Also from California, but from Santa Barbara, Alan Brown reported that in 2021 he retired from his cardiology practice and from his position as chief medical information officer for his local hospital system. Since then he and Sally have been enjoying a quiet life. Their son and his family live nearby, so they are also able to attend the activities of their two granddaughters. In May, they visited their daughter Lauren and her family in Bozeman, Montana, and on the way added on a visit to Yellowstone (where they enjoyed seeing grizzly bears!).

This past spring, they enjoyed a visit from Nancy and Fred Meier, who were on a vacation trip down the Pacific Coast. They would love to hear from any other classmates who are traveling through Santa Barbara. Finally, when Alan wrote earlier this year, he shared that they planned a trip for

September to the Canadian Rockies with Sandy and Joe Avellone.

Stan Mogelson reports that he has been fully retired from both medicine and law enforcement since 2014. He and Patti sold their home in Idaho and for nearly a year lived in an RV, traveling! They then settled in Philadelphia but after seven years moved back to the St. Louis area, where they built a new house. They have a number of children and grandchildren in that area and one son in Nashville, an easy drive away, though another son lives in Marseille (France!?)—not as easy to get to. Overall, Stan and Patti are enjoying their retirement.

From Richmond, Virginia, Boyd Winslow reported that he and Mary recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary (!) with a sumptuous weekend at the Inn at Little Washington in Virginia, about 70 miles west of Washington, D.C. A lovely photo of Boyd and Mary is included here. Thinking back 50 years, Boyd recalls that a number of our classmates attended their wedding back in 1974, including Dan Wing and Mike Luggen, to name but a couple. Nice to consider that we have classmates who have followed us in this manner for so many decades!

Boyd Winslow ’72 and his wife Mary recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at the Inn at Little Washington in Virginia.

As for me, Eric Brenner, I am now retired both (1) from my work with the state health department’s Disease Control Program, as well as (2) from my several-decades-long teaching of infectious disease epidemiology at our school of public health. I am now recovering from some GI surgery but hope soon to start work on several epi projects that I have been considering for some time!

P.S.: Also included here is a special photo in honor of our beloved DMS Pathology Professor Miguel MarinPadilla, who passed away last year at the age of 92. The photo was taken at the Norwich Inn, where two of us and our spouses (Karlann and Eric Brenner and Nancy and Fred Meier) were honored to share a dinner with him back in 2017.

—Eric Brenner

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 29

Health Leaders Circle:

Shaping the Future of Healthcare

“ The Geisel scholarship has reaffirmed the importance of paying my privilege forward.

As a current beneficiary, I am excited by the prospect of one day helping to support another student’s educational journey…

Your donation was vital in beginning to level the playing field for folks from all walks of life and ensuring that the next generation of public health professionals is diverse and representative of the communities we aim to serve.”

Joey Martinez MPH ’26

The Health Leaders Circle is a dedicated group of donors who play a crucial role in supporting the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth’s mission to shape the future of healthcare. As a member, you join a community of likeminded individuals committed to advancing innovative, patient-centered care and education.

With your support, Geisel will continue to provide students with the resources and education they need to become our future healthcare leaders. Whether they are pursuing a career as a physician, working to improve global health policies, or conducting groundbreaking cancer research, these students will know that you are supporting them every step of the way.

Join the Health Leaders Circle giving society with a gift of $5,000+ to one or more priority area funds, and help power Geisel’s innovation and impact over the next year.

Health Leaders Circle Priority Funds at Geisel The Fund for Geisel Geisel Scholarships Geisel Research Support Exclusive Benefits of Membership Invitations to exclusive events Regular updates on the impact of your support Behind-the-scenes tours Opportunities to meet Dartmouth Health and Geisel School of Medicine’s best and brightest Recognition in publications Join Us Your participation in the Health Leaders Circle demonstrates a deep commitment to the vitality of Geisel’s academic medical enterprise. To learn more about the Health Leaders Circle or to make your gift, visit DHGeiselGiving.org/HLC.

CLASS NOTES

73

This column includes news from the two-year class of 1973 and the three-year class of 1973-4.

Dear Classmates: Greetings from northern Minnesota. I am writing this in late June from a lake near the Mississippi River headwaters, taking some time off. But given the pace and connectedness of life these days, I am on email every day because ongoing projects need constant attention.

How things have changed from 50 years ago, when a third of our class had just started their internships and the rest of us were sliding into our fourthyear rotations. By today’s standards, we were shockingly unconnected even in the hospital, except by landlines (how many of us still have those?), our little gray beepers, and overhead paging systems. You can vote (and let me know) whether this makes you nostalgic or gives you PTSD. Or consider how you took a history and performed physical examinations: There was nothing between you and the patient except, for some, a pen and notepad. For that, I would say, I am nostalgic in wishing our junior colleagues did not let the EHR and keyboard replace eye contact. I suspect many of you feel the same way as you move from one side of the physicianpatient face-off to the other side. But I hope all of those encounters are benign.

I am grateful to have been able to keep in touch with classmates Pearl O’Rourke, Scott Emery, Rob Smith, Andy Roberts, Will Chamberlin, Don Raddatz, and Carla Hellekson over the past year. Best wishes to everyone for the rest of 2024.

—David Knopman

74

This column includes news from the two-year class of 1974 and the three-year class of 1974-5.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Bill Thorwarth.

75

This column includes news from the two-year class of 1975 and the three-year class of 1975-6.

It was exciting to see that two of our classmates contributed to the alumni “Wisdom Book” this year. The Wisdom Book is an annual graduation gift to each year’s Geisel School of Medicine graduates—a collection of stories from alumni who share career experiences that they hope may prove helpful to the graduates.

Phil Maloney wrote about remembering these words from his medical student graduation: “Always listen to your patient.” He said in his experience, this is the factor that exceptional physicians have. He also shared these words of advice: “Be humble and show compassion, while seeing the patient as a person, not a diagnosis.”

Phil is a Dartmouth College ’73 and a ’75 graduate of the two-year DMS program; he finished his MD at Brown in ’77 and then trained at Tufts in general surgery from ’77 to ’79 and at Harvard/ MGH in orthopaedics from ’79 to ’81. He is now retired and living in the Flathead Valley of Montana. I was unable to reach him personally, but I was pleased to learn about him from this story.

I did have a wonderful conversation with the other classmate who contributed to the Wisdom Book this year— Larry Colen. Larry came to DMS as a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Colgate and obtained his MD from Dartmouth ’75. He trained at UCSF for five years in general surgery and then for two years in plastic surgery. He did one more year of fellowship in microsurgery with Dr. Harry Buncke, known as the “father of microsurgery.”

Larry returned to Dartmouth with all these skills in 1983, joining the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He had married a nurse in San Francisco who was from the East, and they had three children while they were in Hanover, delivered by Drs. Barry Smith and Bill Young.

In the Wisdom Book, Larry shared an email he had just received from a grateful patient he treated 35 years ago. The patient thanked him for using his microsurgical skills to save his chronically infected diabetic foot from amputation.

Larry wrote that surgeons tend to focus on the surgical problem, forgetting that the surgical problem is part of something much larger: a patient.

He asked, “Could I have been a better physician, spending more time understanding my patients’ fears?”

He encourages the new graduates to acknowledge the many ways physicians affect lives, in and out of the operating room.

Larry left Dartmouth in 1990 and still has an active private practice in plastic and reconstructive surgery in Norfolk, Virginia. He is also on the medical staff at Eastern Virginia Medical School, where he helped start a plastic surgery residency in 2021.

Remarkably, one of his sons attended medical school and is now a plastic surgeon at Yale. His daughter works in the mayor’s office in Richmond, Virginia, and his other son is a financial officer with Morgan Stanley in NYC. Pretty successful kids coming out of those Hanover births and, obviously, a good mom. He now has five grandchildren.

I would encourage anyone reading this column to consider sharing your wisdom with our Geisel graduates in the Wisdom Book—an annual fun read. Also, don’t make me rely on the Wisdom Book to hear news about you!

—Oge Young

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 31

CLASS NOTES

76

If you have news to share, contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at 603-646-5297 or Geisel.Alumni.

Relations@dartmouth.edu.

77 78

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Arminda Perez.

I promised a Part II about our 45th reunion, and it’s time to finally put pen to paper, though I have managed to procrastinate for months and so have forgotten most of what happened— probably to everyone’s benefit!

Reunion weekend began with a buffet under the stars in a tent on the lawn outside of Remsen. I forget how we recognized one another after such a long hiatus, but when we arrived, John Hodgson and his lovely wife, Dinah, were there. John and I were briefly together as PGY1s at Upstate Medical in Syracuse. John went on to finish residency at Michigan before a cardiology fellowship there and at Rhode Island Hospital. A full bio would take up too much space and more memory than I currently have, but in addition to practicing clinical cardiology, he has been an inventor, an entrepreneur, and an author. He has worked overseas and eventually settled down outside Cleveland, where he is affiliated with MetroHealth.

SHOUT OUT

1978

L to R: Susan and Peter Rogol ’78, Dinah and John Hodgson ’78, Dartmouth’s president Sian Leah Beilock.

Our numbers swelled to three with the arrival of Kevin Rist, who looks little different from our DMS days.

Kevin took his time finishing his PhD in physiology at DMS, while living in the Hanover hinterlands, but he eventually did a cardiology fellowship at the U of Minnesota and an EP fellowship in Pittsburgh. His wanderings finally took him to Wausau, Wisconsin, where he is still in clinical practice. Recall that he and John were good friends from undergrad days at DC, including time on the ski team together. Needless to stay, he and John were well traveled enough to keep my wife Susan and me enter-

Roberta Hines MED ’78 earned honorable mention at Yale School of Medicine’s poster contest, from over 80 entries, for her group’s poster “Development and Validation of a Simulation-Based Assessment Tool for Anesthesiology Residents in Basic Transesophageal Echocardiography” in the medical education research category.

32 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

tained throughout the reunion.

We were joined at the main dinner on Saturday at the Hanover Inn by John Maxfield. John did his ER residency at the U of Oregon and lived in England for many years, raising his family there, before moving stateside and residing outside of Cleveland, where he continues in practice, also affiliated with MetroHealth. I can’t recall the formal program on Saturday, as the noise in the room drowned out much of it, but there was time left for pleasant conversation about DMS, family, and our various travels.

Sunday’s breakfast gave us a chance to meet the new DC president, Sian Leah Beilock, a neuroscientist (trained in psychology), who had just been installed. She was previously the president of Barnard.

Before ending, I need to call everyone’s attention to a recently published book By John Hodgson, Healing the System: A Prescription for Reinventing the Heart in Healthcare, put out by Redemption Press.

Thanks to Doug Segan for an email letting me know that at least one person read the last column. Finally, let’s recall in fond memory Helen

CLASS NOTES

Robinson, Peter Kolack, Carol Dembe, Robert Lang, John McCarthy, and Mark Winter.

—Peter R. Rogol

79 80 81

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Dennis Angellis.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Celine M. Stahl.

We hope the summer of 2024 will have been a great one by the time you read this. One of the highlights of returning to live in the Upper Valley has been seeing classmates who have retired here, like Charlie Carr, as well as others who visit, like Jim O’Brien.

In addition, six of our classmates generously contributed a total of nine stories from their careers to the “Wisdom Book” that’s given to graduating medical students before they leave the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth each May. These are Alan Donnenfeld, Anne Griffin, Jon Keeve, Jeff Georgia, Robert Michler, and Dan Lucey.

This is the start of the ninth year of asking all alumni to contribute an approximately 500-word story that conveys a message we might have wanted to know when we graduated from medical school. A

SHOUT OUT

1981

total of nearly 200 individual alumni stories have been contributed over the preceding eight years. This year is also the second year of providing similar wisdom stories to first-year medical students at their White Coat Ceremony in August/September. More such stories from our class are always welcome and can be sent to the Alumni Office and/or to Dan Lucey.

Jim O’Brien drove up to Hanover from his home in NYC to participate in a four-person panel that focused on the early years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The panel was held on May 21 at the John Sloan Dickey Center at Dartmouth College. A link to the panel can be found here: dartgo.org/ANNAIDSPanel.

Jim has offered to return to speak on his experiences from 1981 to 1984 at St. Vincent’s in NYC, for an elective course in 2025 that Dan is organizing as part of a new slate of shared courses open to students pursuing their MD, MPH, and MS degrees at Geisel.

—Dan Lucey and Mark Lena

82

Hello classmates. Thanks to Doximity and a few classmate reporters, I have quite a bit of news for a change.

Michael Pinette was an author on an article cited on Doximity. It was titled “Pregnancy outcomes following natural conception and assisted reproduction treatment in women who

Jeffrey Susman D ’78, MED ’81, P ’10 was selected by the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) as one of seven recipients of the 2024 Edithe J. Levit Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his enduring commitment and contributions to the organization and assessment in medical education.

received COVID-19 vaccination prior to conception: A population-based cohort study in China” and published in Frontiers in Medicine (see dartgo.org/ ANNPinette).

Mark Carney is always a good source of news on our classmates; most recently, he shared a letter he received from Mark Zimmerman—who was fine with my sharing his update.

Mark and his wife, Deirdre, had been working in Nepal for several years and made the decision to return to the U.S. with the thought that he would work as a pastor. Out of 600 possible churches, he was asked to be the pastor of a Methodist church in Lebanon, New Hampshire! He then started on the journey to learn to be a non-ordained licensed local pastor, and they packed up their home in Elkton, Maryland, and moved north. Mark left his 100-year-old mother in the safe hands of his sister in Maryland, and as I write this, his college-age sons are most likely in New Hampshire for the summer, after spending the school year in Philadelphia. This will definitely be an adjustment for the whole family, and we wish them luck. Perhaps some classmates will go visit them.

Next, Doximity told me that Lidia Schapira has authored an article, too: “Second Primary Breast Cancer in Young Breast Cancer Survivors.” She has also published a few other recent articles concerning breast cancer, as well as some online content.

Dan Lucey recently received an award from the Division of Institutional Diversity and Equity at Dartmouth: the 2024 Lester B. Granger ’18 Award.

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 33

CLASS NOTES

Congratulations!

And Brita Lucey shared the word that she celebrated her 70th birthday on May 23 with her husband, Dan Lucey, and several other Geisel friends.

“Lots of good food, good company, and good conversation,” she wrote. I can add a few more details, as I was among the guests at her party, along with Carolyn Brooks, Vince Pellegrini ’79, Lisa Adams ’90, and other friends and family. It was outdoors on a lovely day, and Dan let us know about Brita’s new book, Ladies in Waiting, about finding the joy in IVF. It seems like a very timely subject in the current political climate.

I hope everyone had a good summer.

I hope to hear more from others in

SHOUT OUT

1982

Daniel Lucey D ’77, MED ’81/’82, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Health Policy and Clinical Practice, has been awarded the Lester B. Granger ’18 Award as one of Dartmouth College’s 2024 Social Justice Awardees.

This award honors Lucey’s extraordinary work and dedication as an international infectious disease specialist, focusing on the intersection of infectious diseases and historically marginalized populations.

our class for the next column. I’ll keep looking on Doximity!

—Patricia Edwards

84

Hello members of the DMS Class of 1984! I hope this finds you all well and enjoying the practice of medicine or all that retirement has to offer. I am curious to hear who among us is still working and in what capacity. I am always looking for news to print, so don’t be shy and send a few lines to let everyone know what you are up to!

Speaking of news that is fit to print, I received a nice email from Chris LaRocca, updating the class about his life and work. For the last five years, Chris has been working in a different capacity, developing a new family medicine residency at Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, New Hampshire.

Chris himself had practiced there since residency. The program has been put together from the ground up, assembling a great faculty team, including the program director, Geisel alum Karl Dietrich. Karl is the son of Allen Dietrich—Chris’s advisor when we were at Dartmouth. The first class of residents started this summer, and the program is now in full swing. Chris

sees patients a couple of half-days a week and helps cover the residents’ clinic. He is also planning a longitudinal humanities curriculum for the team. He teaches one day a week at Geisel, facilitating a small group in On Doctoring, the primary clinical skills course. Chris also continues to do Geisel interviewing, something he very much enjoys after his term as admissions chair ended. Busy guy!

On a personal note, Chris and his wife, Bonny, celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary. Bonny still teaches second grade. Their oldest child, Sarah, is a data scientist in San Francisco. Daughter Rachel LaRocca is a Geisel alum and family physician in Montpelier, Vermont. Son Jacob is an electromechanical engineer outside of Boston. And son Caleb is a zookeeper in Utica, New York.

That’s all for now. Be well and please write when you are able and let your fellow classmates know what you are up to! An extra bonus for me is being able to communicate with those of you who do check in.

—David Curran

Members of the class of 1982 from L to R: Peter Mazonson, Brita Lucey, Mary Ann Zetes, Dan Lucey.

34 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

CLASS NOTES

Left: Brenda Carter Taylor ’86 and family Christmas picture.

Right: Brenda Carter Taylor ’86 and Robert Taylor on vacation in Alaska.

Below: Philip Wey ’86 participating in his new sport, HYROX (blue shirt and shirtless).

85 86

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Laurie Draughon.

Here I am on a steamy summer day. I’ve found it can get expensive when I get out the laptop—almost like a snow day—as I can spend money on an item I really don’t need and have it delivered to my doorstep! Ah-ha—an all-around better use of my time is to send in a couple of paragraphs of happy news from two of our 1986 classmates.

Philip Wey writes that his new sport is HYROX, a fitness competition that combines running with functional strength and that originated in Germany in 2017. “We placed seventh

overall (the top U.S. team) at the World Championships in Nice, France, in the men’s doubles open, 60-69 age group.” Congratulations, Phil! I am truly humbled after googling this tough sport. Me, I put on my Nikes and can’t “just do it.”

Brenda Carter Taylor writes that she has lived in Birmingham, Alabama, since 1990, after completing a residency in ob-gyn at the University of South Alabama. She has been married to Robert Taylor for 34 years and raised two children, Christopher Michael and Myrah Elizabeth Taylor Tompkins (married in 2023). She practiced with Henderson and Walton Women’s Center from 1990 to 2012 and transitioned to only gynecology in 2005 after

having done obstetrics for 15 years. In 2012, she started a gyn-only practice, Page, Hudson, and Taylor Gynecology, at St. Vincent’s. She sold the practice to Ascension St. Vincent’s Birmingham and has been an “employee” since 2018. “That was right before COVID, so it was a blessing. I practice with three other MDs and an NP, which lends itself to a wonderful lifestyle. This year, I reduced my schedule to three days a week and plan to retire at the end of the year. My youngest child, Myrah, who lives in Memphis, was married in September [2023]. The wedding was so much fun to plan. Robert and I bought electric bikes and a truck, as we plan to start exploring the world of camping.”

Over the last year they visited Alaska, Aruba, the Greek isles, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Spain.

Please continue to share your stories and pictures!

—Cathy Cantilena

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 35

CLASS NOTES

Left and Right: Laura Hotchkiss ’87 and family.

Bottom left: Harper Randall ’87 and husband Mike Davies.

Bottom right: Stephanie Lash ’87 hiking in New Zealand.

87

Hello all. “Just” 40 years ago we were starting our first year at DMS. The rapid passage of time takes my breath away!

I’ll start with our update: Mike and I, Harper Randall, have both retired and wanted to be closer to our two children and their spouses in Oregon. So over the course of less than nine months, we had a home built in Salem, Oregon; sold our Salt Lake City home of 32 years; and moved to Oregon. We moved in March of this year and are extremely happy here, for umpteen reasons.

Gary Doolittle and his wife, Sue, recently completed the Best of the West Olympic Triathlon and won their age group, 70-74!

Laura (Gallup) Hotchkiss writes: “I am still living in the state of Washington and working as a teleradiologist. My second children’s book has been published and can be found on Amazon. It is Turkeys and Volcanoes. I am working on my third book, Turn Out the Light and Call it a Night. My family is all doing well.

My son Ryan just graduated from the Uniformed Services medical school in Bethesda, Maryland. He is in the Air Force and is stationed at Brooke Army Medical Center. My eldest daughter is working on her master’s degree in historic stone carving at City and Guilds London College of Art. My

36 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

next daughter works for the state of California, photographing projects and publishing articles. She is involved in Girls that Click, a nature photography group. My youngest son is a recruiter and is doing quite well. My husband and I travel when we can. We just enjoyed a trip to Italy. If time ever permits, we hope to someday make it to a reunion. Hope all is well with all of you.”

Steve Genereaux writes: “Jamie and I are just home from Acadia and Bar Harbor. The highlight of the trip was our niece’s graduation from College of the Atlantic. We had three terrific days cycling and hiking in the park to boot. Our big news is that our youngest plans to attend Dean College (southwest of Boston) this fall. We’ll continue our fall and spring

trips to Ireland for a 50/50 mix of locums work and exploring the west coast on bikes. I plan to stop doing deliveries in July 2025 when my privileges are up for renewal. We have a new FP joining us out of the Provo program to take my place. Sheep, horses, chickens, seasonal cows, and one llama are all well.”

Lash, a.k.a. Stephanie Lash, writes: “After too many years of taking one-week breaks, I was able to find a full month and hiked in New Zealand.

It was so much fun, exploring both the north and the south islands with a group of Brits! Hoping to add more long-distance walking to my regular rowing and skiing mix.”

Hope you all have a wonderful rest of 2024. Sending good vibes.

—Harper Randall

CLASS NOTES

89

Chip Trayner ’89, Eddie Trayner, and Terry Vacarro.

88

Congratulations to Tina Chang, the 2024 Medical Honoree of the Arthritis Foundation’s Chicago Walk to Cure Arthritis. Tina is a rheumatologist at University of Illinois Health, and her clinical interests are treating lupus and scleroderma. She was honored for her commitment to collaborative relationships with patients and for providing care that integrates a patient’s lifestyle and worldview without sacrificing quality of care. I spend my days stomping out bloating and diarrhea; not sure there’s an award for that.

As we pass 35 years since graduating from DMS, the number of classmates retiring or at least thinking about starting to slowly inch towards retirement is growing. Greg Cummings hit the magic 65, thought he should retire from neurology in Cooperstown, then had second thoughts. Kind of a right brain/left brain battle, I suppose.

Eliza Deery has cut back on the ICU portion of her pulmonary and critical care practice in Laconia, New Hampshire. You are all assuming, of course, that with her loads of extra free time, Eliza is frequently making the short drive to Portsmouth to visit her

favorite classmate, me—but, alas, no such visits have materialized.

Robin and Brian Yrinic don’t have plans to retire yet, but are at least thinking about it. Robin is a pediatrician in Rochester, New York, where Brian continues his medical oncology practice at the university. When the time comes, Robin would like to work for five weeks in the summer at either Glacier or Denali National Park. She could see kids in the morning and then hike to 20,000 feet to get away from it all!

Having retired from her internal medicine practice, Peg Duhamel and her husband, Randy, have been traveling the globe, enjoying the great outdoors. They visited Portugal, camped in Cape Breton, and did a fabulous 17-day rafting and hiking trip in the Grand Canyon. Hmmm, this retirement thing is starting to sound pretty good.

Unfortunately, Fran decided we needed a new kitchen . . . dining room . . . foyer . . . library . . . and so on, so I’m on the hook for a few more decades.

Looking forward to hearing from the rest of the wonderful Class of ’88!

—Aris Damianos

Chip Trayner receives the first billing because his email arrived just a day after I sent off the last column. When last seen, Chip was catching up with Terry Vacarro at Chip’s son Eddie’s van workshop. His son has a business, InterstateVans.com, where he creates the RV of your dreams. Just a small plug for Chip’s son! Terry was on her way to Rhode Island to attend a concert.

Eric Friedman continues to practice ophthalmology in Princeton, New Jersey. He enjoys the college-town vibe, though it is no New Haven. He has been at the same practice for 24 years, ever since his retinal fellowship. He has found the perfect work-life balance, with a 3.5-day workweek. Good living for a posterior chamber guy!

Terry Wong sends his best from Durham, North Carolina. He is an eminent professor of radiology, professor of medicine (medical oncology), and chief of nuclear medicine and radiotheranostics at Duke. Obviously an underachiever of our class! He has been to Hanover a few times to give radiology grand rounds at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. His wife, Ellen Jones, DMS ’92, is a professor and vice chair of radiation oncology at UNC. Peter Lunny, one of our prominent West Coast nephrologists, remains in full-time practice not far from me, in Fremont, California. The COVID pandemic kept him quite busy caring for patients with acute kidney injuries and end-stage renal disease who required dialysis. Peter, another underachiever in our class, has taken multiple staff leadership positions over the years,

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 37

CLASS NOTES

including chief of staff, peer review chair, and member of the well-being committees at two hospitals in the region. He is looking forward to reducing his administrative commitments to improve his work-life balance. Peter and his husband, John, live on the island of Alameda and have been restoring an 1890s Victorian house. John developed Parkinson’s in his late forties, and he and Peter have been involved in the Michael J. Fox Foundation, raising funds for research on Parkinson’s treatments.

Anjali Chuttani, during the COVID pandemic, moved to her “retirement home” out on Cape Cod, where she could better care for her aging parents.

She continues to work in telederm.

Before she left her practice, a private equity firm bought the practice. Anjali found this was the perfect time to leave. Anjali’s older son just married in May. Congratulations are in order!

She is now contemplating how she can utilize her skills in the next phase of life.

Eric Heidenreich checked in all the way from New Zealand, where he and his wife are currently living and working.

He pushed the reset button in 2022. He states that the move has “extended his shelf life. It is like a working vacation here.” They are renting a beachfront home with awesome sunrise views, and he can jog along the soft sand. Eric works four months on and two months off, then repeats.

David Harrington is still delivering babies. He switched to being a full-time “laborist.” Must be the same union as hospitalists? He works seven 24-hour shifts a month, covering labor and delivery and emergencies. He loves the work, and this gives him more free time. He and his wife, Jean, enjoy more traveling now. He sends his best from Rhode Island.

David Rabin continues to practice cardiology in Massachusetts, though the clock is ticking! He has two daughters. One turns 30 in October and lives just outside San Francisco. The other

38 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

Teddy, lives down in Palo Alto, in my neck of the woods. Like most Stanford students, Teddy has been bit by the start-up bug. Helen worries. Wait until he has his own Gulfstream!

All is well out on the West Coast. It has been a pleasure to catch up with so many classmates. Please feel free to send any new email addresses. I enjoy reading your emails, and I would like to have more classmate news for the next column.

—James Hartford

Peter Lunny ’89 (right) with his husband John.

is 26 and lives in Salt Lake City. I hate to break it to David, but a move out west is in his future! His wife, Heather, is working for a local community TV station in Gloucester.

David Kramer remains as busy as ever, working at Orthopaedic and Neurosurgery Specialists in Connecticut and Westchester County, New York. He has served as chief of spine surgery at Nuvance Health and holds a chair in spine surgery. He has been conducting research related to minimally invasive spine surgery.

David’s three daughters, Caroline, Jennifer, and Allison, are all gainfully employed, while he and his wife, Leslie, are enjoying the empty nest. Don’t we all wish we could say that! They are honing their skills at golf, tennis, pickleball, and paddleball. He feels like it was just yesterday that he was studying under the giants of Dartmouth Medicine, Elmer Pfefferkorn and Heinz Valtin. David reminds me of the importance of remembering the “fecal veneer,” as well as the “Brattleboro rat.”

Helen Manber is suffering through 60-degree San Francisco summers.

Her older son, Benny, is working in NYC in tech and will be starting business school at Harvard. Her younger son,

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If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary E. James Wright III.

If you have news to share, contact the Office of Alumni Engagement at 603-6465297 or Geisel.Alumni.Relations@ dartmouth.edu.

92

Hi, everyone! I am feeling quite under the gun to get our news out, as the deadline is today and we just returned last night from a fabulous three-week family trip to Australia—celebrating our 25th anniversary and our last child leaving for college: yikes!

So, in keeping with the travel theme: Jenn and Pete Woodson sound like they had a trip of a lifetime: “As Eric Dahms mentioned in the last issue, I retired after 30-plus years in the Navy. Jenn and I took the opportunity offered by our new freedom to walk almost 600 miles over 45 days across all of Scotland and much of northern England. We are now settled back in Coronado, California. I am currently unemployed, not looking for work, and enjoying ‘six Saturdays and a Sunday’!

“As I write this, Jenn and I are celebrating our 34th wedding anniversary today—how time flies!”

Check out his pictures from Dunrobin Castle in Golspie, Scotland, and the coast of the North Sea, north

CLASS NOTES

Jennifer and Pete Woodson ’92 at Dunrobin Castle in Golspie, Scotland (left) and on the coast of the North Sea, north of Wick, Scotland (right).

Amy Jane Cadieux ’92 with husband Ronald Petrie at the premiere of The Chosen (left); she was an extra in the season 3 finale. Amy with her daughter Paige in the ER (middle)—“I let Paige scrub into a C-section and I think it’s the first time she thought I was cool!” Amy with her daughter Tess in Alaska (right).

of Wick, Scotland!

Danice Rinderknecht did the ultimate trip and moved across the country! “After living in Maine for 30 years, we moved back to my home state of Colorado in 2022. My daughter, Skylar, is a senior at Colorado School of Mines, and my son, Jeff, just finished his sophomore year in high school. After spending most of my career in emergency medicine, retina issues affected my ability to do procedures, and I’m now working part-time for Rocky Mountain Senior Care doing mostly post-acute care. I was sorry to miss the 30th reunion—it fell in the middle of our move—but I hope to make the next

one!” Be sure to see the picture of her with her lovely children, Skylar and Jeff!

Amy Jane Cadieux shared her amazing world travel news while getting some R&R: “I’m off this week at the lake and finally thought I would contribute something to the class notes. We have been following our daughter Tess around the world! Recently, we caught up with her in Alaska. She is currently in Japan and Korea and has also been to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Bora Bora, and other places. So we just follow her around if we want to see her!

“Paige, our youngest, has one more rotation in PA school and graduates in early August. She has taken a job

in family practice because she likes women’s health, pediatrics, and old people! I predict she will probably change to an intensivist role like ER or ICU because she is just like me, but that has to be her own decision. ;-) “One of the more fun things I’ve done recently is become an extra in the

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 39

CLASS NOTES

L to R: Kristin Keefe ’92 (far right) with husband Peter Clarkin, two of their daughters, and grandson.

filming of the TV series about Jesus, The Chosen. I was part of the feeding of the 5,000—the finale of Season 3!

It was so glamorous: I couldn’t wear eyeliner and we were in 103-degree heat! But I loved it and can’t wait to participate again.”

I can’t forget to mention that Lenny Mankin and Melly Sani trekked to Boston for the annual ACP gathering. In addition to getting to hang out, we did actually learn a lot.

Brent Forester had an adventure in Bodrum and Istanbul while speaking at a conference there—and he had his whole family in tow, too!

I enjoyed hearing from Kristin Keefe, who has been enjoying her career in hospice and palliative care since 2009.

She shared that she and her husband, Peter Clarkin, whom she married in December 2022 in NYC, are enjoying their five children and one grandchild; she sent pictures of her family.

Whew—I love hearing about all these adventures and hope that this inspires more of you to share your escapades and pictures! I continue to be awed by all of you and am so grateful for our continued connections. Please keep in touch! Warmly, Anna.

—Anna Vouros

40 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

93

Danice Rinderknecht ’92 (center) with children Skylar and Jeff.

Hello from Vermont!

As I write this, the weather is warm, there’s a cool breeze, and the remnants of a light rain are misting the flowers on my patio. Ah—summer in Vermont. (We won’t talk about the 99-degree weather that we struggled through last week!)

Kris Rosbe was recently elected to the board of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The April edition of the AAP news carried a wonderful article.

Kris became involved in the AAP in 2004, after being encouraged to become a member and joining the executive committee of the Section on Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. She says she felt like she’d found “her people” within the organization. She hopes to use her new role to “amplify the voices of her surgical colleagues” who, she believes, are “working toward many of the same goals as other pediatric specialists, including promoting physician wellness and sustainability and advocating for more equitable payment.”

Some of her areas of focus will be decreasing provider burnout and improving mental health care access for children across the country.

Congrats, Kris!

Brian Boxer Wachler writes as follows: “We had a super fun 30th reunion last fall! It was great to see so many of you. We had the best turnout of any reunion, from what I was told. Who was there? It was: Ray Bleday, Saul Weiner, Brian Brodwater, Archie McGowan, Lynne Kelley, Kelly MacMillan, Liz Bradley, Peter Allen, Bonnie Henderson, Jennifer Brokaw, Roland Chan, Allen Fry, Michael Golden, Kevin Kerin, David Makil, Colleen Powers, Brian Boxer Wachler, Cara Walther, Loyd West, Paul LaFontaine, and Granville Lloyd.

Dean O’Donnell even came to our class dinner and was a good sport for letting me tattoo him with, well, a tattoo of himself! Roland Chan assisted with this delicate procedure.

“Our twin girls recently graduated from high school and are off to college in the fall. Selina and I have been playing a lot of pickleball and look forward to playing with Mike Golden at the 35th reunion (bring your paddle, Mike!). I’m still working full-time and recently began performing a procedure to change the color of people’s eyes called ColorEyes keratopigmentation, which has been done in Europe for

CLASS NOTES

over 15 years.”

Pat Ginn wrote in, noting that he and Susanne Krasovich are both still at the residency program in Wisconsin, where he serves as the program director/designated institutional official and Susanne is the medical director. They are enjoying the full scope of family medicine, including ICU, maternity, and pediatric care. “We both continue to love working with residents and students, even though we are now officially the old people in the building.”

With regard to his children, Pat writes: “Michael is 24 and has just finished the second year of his PhD program at Colorado. His work is in natural language processing and computational linguistics. Something about programming with global languages that are not widely spoken.

For the fourth summer in a row, he is working at Apple in Cupertino— this time on a team that he’s been very vague about. Rachel turns 21 in September and will be a senior at Case Western. She has decided to follow us into medicine and is currently working on her applications for med school.

She keeps incredibly busy—she is also a thrower of heavy objects for the Case track team, so she works out at least

SHOUT OUT

1993

Kris Rosbe MED ’93 was recently elected to the board of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

once a day all year. This summer she has been including Susanne and me in her workouts once a week—that’s about all we can do because it takes a week for the soreness to subside enough to do it again. Wishing everyone all the best! Pat and Susanne.”

Liz Bradley sent me an update that resulted in a phone call, which was lovely, since we never see each other, despite the fact that she left her position at the Cleveland Clinic in September 2023 and is now back in the Upper Valley. She subsequently started a virtual practice: the Advanced Functional Medicine and Longevity Center. Her son, Richard, got married last November and is living in NYC, and Katherine is a fourth-year medical student at Geisel and will be applying for residency this fall.

On my way home from Florida in May, where I celebrated my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary and saw both of my boys (who now live in California), I bumped into Loyd West. He was returning home from a visit with family and notes that he has fully retired from his career as a gyn-oncologist and is enjoying getting back to his long bike tours. He looked wonderful—happy and more relaxed than I’ve seen him in years.

Hoping this finds the rest of you doing well and reaping the blessings of family and friends.

—Robyn Jacobs

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If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Kimberly Mooney-McNulty.

Hello! I hope everyone is well and had a great summer! I was lucky to hear from several of you this time; this is what I have to share: Scott Krugman wrote: “Our oldest son, Daniel, graduated from college in ’21 and from the Johns Hopkins

School of Public Health last spring and has started a PhD in anthropology at Brown. Our second son, Ryan, is graduating from St. Lawrence University this spring and is heading for a master’s in climate and society at Columbia University this fall. Lynn is the president of two nonprofit boards, including one for an organization we work with in Copan Ruinas, Honduras (Casita Copan), where we have been doing mission work since 2014. We just returned from this year’s trip, where we dedicated a new medical clinic for the Chorti Mayan communities that will open this summer. Dave Turner has come with us a few times. In February, I was named the inaugural senior associate dean of the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences’ Regional Medical Campus at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, where I continue to practice pediatrics on top of running the regional campus for the third- and fourth-year medical students.” This is so wonderful to hear, Scott. You and your family continue to take the world by storm. Thank you for all of your hard work and for giving back to the less fortunate.

Tish Gallanter reported: “I am still working in the ER. I work at a community hospital in Jacksonville Beach and a Level I Trauma Center at Shands Jacksonville. We have an EM residency program there. I am traveling right now. Started in Barcelona, heading to the French Riviera, then will end in Rome. Today I am in Nice.

I witnessed the arrival of the Olympic torch. It was an amazing experience. I have attached a couple of pics.” Check

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 41

CLASS NOTES

Left: Tish Gallanter ’95 on her recent trip to Nice, France. Right: Photo of Olympic Torch arriving in Nice, France. Tish Gallanter was there to see it.

SHOUT OUT

1997

Irene Dankwa-Mullan MPH, MED ’97 was selected as the Commencement Speaker for the Dartmouth Geisel Class of 2024 Health Professions graduates. She shared the amazing journey of her great-grandmother from her ancestral hometown of Akwatia in Ghana, who embraced a social mission of education and healthcare. She shared the importance of rebuilding trust in healthcare, and centering community and health equity.

42 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

out the Olympic torch and Tish in the middle of it all!

I also heard from Nancy McNulty!

She shared this update: “Ben (Forbush) and I are pretty good. I’m still at DHMC in radiology and am director of the imaging curriculum at the medical school—a job I love. I recently was promoted to full professor. Ben remains at the VA in WRJ and is the director of general surgery. No plans for retirement anytime soon in this household!

Cameron (19) just finished his freshman year at UNC in Chapel Hill and loved it. Charlie (17) will begin senior year at Hanover High this fall and is starting the college search. We still live in Norwich, about a mile from Dan and Whit’s, with two epic golden retrievers.

We look forward to seeing many of you at our next reunion and hope to host a gathering for the class at our house.”

All right, class—you saw it here first!

Party at the McNulty-Forbush house!

I, Kristen Hansberry, remain in Minnesota, just west of Minneapolis. Our daughter Sarah (24) lives in Chicago and works in healthcare benefits consulting; our son Matthew (23) is a financial consultant for United Healthcare; our

son Charlie (21) is at the University of North Dakota in the commercial aviation program and is working on his commercial pilot’s license; and our youngest, Christopher (17), is headed into his senior year of high school. My husband runs strategy and business development at HealthPartners, and I am a medical director and clinical lead for Healthy Blue Missouri (a Medicaid MCO and part of Elevance Health Inc.).

We are blessed to see the kids pretty frequently and watch them take off in their careers. We hope to travel more over the next couple of years. Looking forward to seeing you next year!

—Kristen O. Hansberry

96 97 98

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Emily Transue.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Lucille Vega.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Rondall Lane.

CLASS NOTES

New grandpa Eric Walsh ’00 holding baby Everett Wilson.

The family of Josh Sparling ’00: wife, Molly (middle) and children Jonah (right) and Jaina (left).

99 00

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Danielle Albushies.

Hi, everyone! Happy 24 years being an MD. From Eric Walsh: “Remember the little 8-month-old daughter Caroline and I were caring for when I started at DMS? Well, she just had a baby! Everett Wilson was born on 6/4/24, weighing 7 lbs. 6 oz., to Emily and Holden Wilson. That makes me a grandpa! Hard to believe, but everyone is doing great.”

Josh Sparling: “I’m still working at the Maine-Dartmouth Family Practice Residency Program. I’ve been there seven years, so this summer I will have a three-month sabbatical. I will be studying the intersectionality between spirituality and healthcare. Jaina (on the left in the picture), my oldest, will be a senior at Gordon College this fall and just completed a semester in Uganda working at a nutritional deficiency clinic for children. She plans on going to either medical school or PA school. Since our youngest, Willow, will be a high schooler this fall, Molly is starting to wind down almost two decades of homeschooling the kids and will be embarking on a master’s degree in formational leadership. My middle one, Jonah, just graduated from high school and will be joining

his older sister at Gordon College in Massachusetts, studying psychology, with a minor in conflict resolution (he’s the peacemaker in the family!). Hope everyone is doing well.”

All is well in Santa Rosa, California, too. I, Maya Mitchell Land, so I am now department chief, so I am “enjoying” oh, so many meetings. :-) And my son is a junior in high school, so Gary and I are starting to feel what the empty nest will be like.

Please send me updates for the next issue if you have news to share.

—Maya Mitchell Land

01 02

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Jill Marple.

Hi all! I hope everyone is doing well! I, Rob Fortuna, am still at the University of Rochester practicing internal medicine and pediatrics. I work as the medical director for population health and quality in our large primary care network in Rochester. I also work in the med-peds residency program, directing the ambulatory experience and research curriculum for the residents. I still love primary care and enjoy the perk of working with Steve Judge (director of primary care at UR).

Jan and I have two daughters—Katie (16) and Allie (13). Both girls are very

active in dance. Katie is also on the varsity ski team. Jan is serving on the school board for our local school district.

As a family, we still love sailing on the Finger Lakes with our dog, Marley (6).

Hope to see everyone again soon.

—Rob Fortuna

03 04

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretaries Junko Ozao-Choy or Blair

Hammond.

Happy summer, everyone!

I hope this finds you all well. It has been another hectic year, and it’s refreshing to have the children out of school, with summer vacation to look forward to. I still can’t believe it has been 20 years since we graduated! I am already happily planning my retirement. It’s never too early.

Our fledgling WhatsApp group has been growing. If anyone wants to join, please send me an email so I can send you the link.

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 43

CLASS NOTES

Backroom booth at Murphy’s in Hanover. Members of the class of 2005: Colin Stack, Melanie Watts, Matt Babineau, Amelia Solomon (Ben and Kathleen Solomon’s daughter—Kathleen sadly had to miss the trip), Ben Solomon, and Manish Mishra.

I’ve heard from a few people. Ram Mani has been busy and is doing great work for Rutgers University’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in their neurology department. Within the past year, he was promoted to chief of the epilepsy division, medical director of the neurophysiology lab, and director of the hospital’s general neurology consult service. He works with more than 40 neurology attendings and residents, neurosurgeons, and others.

He also became program director of the epilepsy fellowship last year, and the program was able to fill all its positions with excellent candidates for next year. He’s also been involved with several research trials and publications regarding epilepsy and education.

Please send any neurologists his way,

SHOUT OUT

2004

as the department is expanding. He is looking forward to seeing and catching up with classmates at the upcoming reunion and celebrating with everyone.

Mike Leslie sends greetings to all: “Dane (Tuck ’03); our boys—Brandt (8) and Francis (5); and I are doing well in Boston. I’m still working as a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital, where I’m the medical director of the adult inpatient trauma and dissociative disorders unit. I’ve been there for about 15 years. I feel so fortunate to have a role that feels meaningful and that I still enjoy! I also have a (very small) private practice and spend a good amount of time teaching and supervising. Our family is doing great; we often spend weekends in the Upper Valley at our place in Eastman.

Ram Mani MED ’04 was promoted to chief of the epilepsy division, medical director of the neurophysiology lab, and director of the general neurology consult service at Rutgers University’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in their neurology department—all within the past year.

44 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

The boys are very busy and growing up fast!”

Be well.

—Ndidiamaka Onwubalili

05

In a reprise of our Monday post-quiz celebrations/ sorry drownings, a few classmates returned to our same back room booth at Murphy’s in Hanover. Pictured are Colin Stack; Melanie Watts; Matt Babineau; my daughter, Amelia Solomon; yours truly, Ben Solomon (Kathleen DelGrosso Solomon sadly had to miss the trip due to an unplanned dental procedure); and Manish Mishra.

—Ben Solomon

06 07 08 09

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Jean-Paul-Dedam.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Jamie Bessich.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Rebecca (Rotello) Craig.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Kristen Telischak.

CLASS NOTES

Left: Jill and Chetan Huded (both class of 2011) with their three daughters Juno, Margot, and Hannah. Right: Tom and Avni Finn (both class of 2011) with their two children, Riaan and Oleana.

Left: Patrick Tran (far left), Erin Washburn ‘11 (right) and their children Ethan (far right) and Sophie (front center) with friends.

Above: Sumo and Abi Kukoyi ‘11 on vacation.

10 11

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Sarah Dotters-Katz.

Greetings to the Class of 2011!

Abi and I hope this finds you and yours doing well. Abi Kukoyi and her husband, Sumo, finally made it on a trip without kids (their first in six years)! See the photo of them on the beautiful island of Santorini.

Tom Finn writes: “Avni and I are loving life in Nashville, where both of us are at Vanderbilt. Our two children, Riaan and Oleana, will be 3 and 6 this

year. We’d love to see any DMS friends in Music City if you’re in the area!”

Erin Washburn writes: “Still living in Chicago, where I’m now in my fifth year working as a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Endeavor Health (formerly known as NorthShore University HealthSystem). After spending a few years as the APD for the University of Chicago/Endeavor’s combined MFM fellowship, I took over as program director of the fellowship last year! I also have become our clinical lead at Swedish Hospital, which is a community safety net hospital on the north side of

Chicago. Work is very busy/exhausting, but fulfilling. :-) I am also very grateful to be working in Illinois, where, thankfully, I have been able to continue to provide comprehensive reproductive healthcare and family planning services!

Family-wise, we’re doing well! Patrick and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary last year and have our hands full with two rambunctious, opinionated, sweet, and sassy kiddos (Ethan, 4.5 years old, and Sophie, almost 2 years old). Patrick is working for the Illinois attorney general’s office, leading a new statewide wrongful convictions program, so we’re both quite busy, but he is also really enjoying his work. While there never seem to be enough hours in the day, we are beyond grateful for our beautiful family, fulfilling work, and good health. We’re looking forward to a family vacation to Costa Rica in July!”

I, Jill Huded, with Chetan Huded, have now been in Kansas City for four

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 45

CLASS NOTES

Left: Several of the class of 2014 in Sedona, Arizona following a “Dartmouth reunion” in Tuba City. Right: Wade Harrison ’16 and Asha McClurg ’16 with their two sons Atul and Navi.

years, although I make sure Chetan gets his East Coast fix several times yearly. I transitioned from ambulatory geriatrics and primary care to helping lead a large regional hospital-at-home program. Chetan is doing amazing work in the structural cardiology world, when not chasing three opinionated young women (not including myself).

All our best!

—Jill Rosno Huded and Abiodun T. Kukoyi

12 13

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Kolene Bailey.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Jill Kaspar Baird.

SHOUT OUT

2013

14

Dear Class of 2014, happy 10th year graduation anniversary! I’m sending you warm wishes from New York, where I am currently working at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

Ilya Bendich writes: “I’m at WashU as an attending in adult reconstruction, with a very busy clinical practice focused on robotic hip replacement.

On a personal note, we are expecting a third child in December.”

Asha McClurg (Geisel ’16) and Wade Harrison are living in Durham and are both on the faculty at the University of North Carolina, in minimally invasive gynecology and hospital pediatrics, respectively. “More interestingly, we keep busy chasing around our two sons, Atul (3 years old) and Navi (5 months old)!”

Zita Ficko MED ’13 was one of four doctors recognized as a Physician and Advanced Practice Provider of the Year at Rutland Regional Medical Center. Dr. Ficko was recognized by her peers as a passionate and collegial physician who is a master in her field. Submissions highlighted her clinical humanity, competence, and cooperation.

46 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

Kevin McNerney is working as a pediatric stem cell transplant doctor at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, with a clinical/research focus on CAR T-cell therapy. He writes: “My wife, Jinny, and I just had our first child, Clara, who is now 6 weeks old.”

Margaret Pollard writes: “Our med school friends got together in April 2024 in Sedona, Arizona, after visiting Katie Ferguson (Geisel ’17) and Nick Stadlberger in Tuba City for a Dartmouth reunion.”

Nicole Vilardo is a gynecologic oncologist at Valley Mt. Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Care, a private hospital in northern New Jersey right outside NYC. “I also have three crazy, loveable, lunatic kids,” she writes.

All the best, Justin.

—Justin K. Kim

15 16 17

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Emma Tang.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretaries Wenlu Gu or Lynn K. Symonds.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Lovelee Brown.

CLASS NOTES

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Alex Orfanos.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretary Kathleen Leinweber.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretaries John Damianos or W. John Porter.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretaries Chad Lewis or Gayathri Tummala.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretaries Joseph Minichiello or Isabelle Yang.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretaries Maura Dore or Sean

O’Donnell.

If you have news to share, contact Class Secretaries Briggs Carhart-Veres or Kathleen E. Wilson.

SHOUT OUT

2021

Cy Lewis MPH MED ’21 matched into the 2025 Stanford ASOPRS oculofacial plastic surgery fellowship.

Mardi Crane-Godreau (Physiology ’04) with her dog Sunny.

PhD & MS

I hope this correspondence finds everyone well and discovering fun ways to beat the heat of the summer. This time around I received information from a few familiar friends (always great to hear from you) and first-time submissions. I hope that means you are enjoying hearing from your fellow alumni in this column: Joe Sanger (Cytology PhD ’68— McCann Lab) wrote in to share the “sad news about the passing of Arthur Forer (Molecular Biology PhD ’64— Inoue Lab). Art was either the first or second student to earn his PhD in the then-new Molecular Biology Program at Dartmouth. My wife, Jean Sanger, and I were junior graduate students at the time in the Department of Cytology.

Art’s thesis advisor was Professor Shinya Inoue, then chair of the Department of Cytology at Dartmouth Medical School. Art went on to a distinguished career in the Department of Biology at York University in Toronto.

Jean and I interacted with him over the course of several decades at the annual American Cell Biology meetings. Art also gave an invited lecture at SUNY Upstate Medical University shortly after we moved to Syracuse, New York,

from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. And just three years ago, I was the outside doctoral examiner for one of Art’s PhD students.

Art was elected in 1984 as a Fellow in the Royal Society of Canada, a group limited to about 2,000 scholars in various endeavors, including the arts, sciences, and engineering. The obituary put out by York University (see dartgo. org/ANNForer) gives great insight into the wonderful person and scientist that Art was. Additionally, I have been asked by the editor of the cell biology journal Cytoskeleton to write an obituary about him for that publication.” Thank you for sharing the news of Art’s passing. My condolences to his family and friends.

Betty Lee (PharmacologyToxicology PhD ’94—Ciardelli Lab) wrote: “I was chosen as a Fellow in the Excellence in Government Leadership Program, organized by the Partnership for Public Service, for the spring of ’23 through the spring of ’24. This is a competitive, yearlong program that is open to senior federal government employees. Fellows have to work on a results-based project that will affect or bring change to a federal agency.

My team members and I, from different bureaus of the Department of Commerce, presented to the senior leadership of the International Trade Administration our analysis of the Section 232 Exclusions Portal for aluminum and steel tariffs on imports that affect U.S. national security. Our team recommended changes in the portal to improve the backlog of cases and the ease of interagency communication. In addition, I was recently

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 47

CLASS NOTES

chosen to be a judge for the 2024 iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition. I’ve been a judge for a few years. The competition draws over 400 multidisciplinary teams from more than 45 countries; this year, the annual jamboree will be at the Paris Expo Center in October.”

Congratulations, Betty!

Stan Willenbring (Physiology PhD ’95—Coombs Lab): “Hey, Bob. I can’t believe you’re still keeping track of all us feral alumni. You deserve the herding-chickens award.

I have two updates: (1) I have finally ‘published’ my first work of fiction, a book aimed at older kids (around middle-school age), but also for folks of any age who enjoy quirky stories that are half fairy tale, half real life, with lots of embedded lessons about science and nature. After realizing it wasn’t what real publishers are looking for, I decided to just create my own personal website and make it available there for free (as a downloadable PDF). The website is simply www.stanwillenbring.com, and the only thing there so far is this book, which is titled The Meaning of Luck. (2) My other update is that I purchased a beautiful piece of wooded property near Mount Cube in Orford, New Hampshire. I’ll be doing prep work there this summer. Then I plan to sell my house in Virginia in the spring and next summer build a

SHOUT OUT

MPH

small house in Orford and make it my new permanent home. I am also working on another book (a series of stories) that is very different from my first one. But at the moment, I’m a bit distracted with building yet another house—at age 73. I need to give up this hobby. I see you’re still out on the peninsula. Try to stay out of the way of this year’s storms. Best, Stan. P.S.: Although my official given name is ‘Bruce,’ be sure anything in the alumni column lists me as ‘Stan,’ or everyone will wonder, ‘Who’s Bruce?’” Will do, Stan!

Mardi Crane-Godreau (Physiology ’04—Wira Lab): “Like so many others, I got COVID in March 2020 and spent most of the next two years on the living room sofa. As I recovered, I began to dig into the mysteries of Long COVID. In late 2022 I began publishing my insights derived from the mountains of papers that I’d downloaded and read. “Long COVID: Insights from a journey back to wellness” can be found here: longcovidjourney2wellness.substack. com. The audience seems to be dominated by scientists and providers looking for insights for self-care, patient care, and likely to drive hypotheses.” Mardi, I am sorry to hear you got COVID, but glad to know you have recovered. Long COVID is still a mystery and I wish you well with your efforts to make inroads on that

serious problem.

Finally, Jennifer Franks (Quantitative Biomedical Sciences PhD ’19—Whitfield Lab) has accepted a faculty position as an assistant professor in the Center for Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

She also holds an affiliate position in the Department of Pediatrics (Division of Genetic Medicine) at the University of Washington. Congratulations, Jennifer!

On a side note, I had a great discussion with Michael Jaffe (Thayer School ’82). His master’s thesis investigated non-invasive recording of activity in the bundle of His. We talked about taking courses with Dr. Gene Nattie, Dr. Robert Nye, and Dr. Andy Daubenspeck, all from the Department of Physiology. Each brought with them a wealth of knowledge and individual persona that is difficult to match anywhere. We spoke about taking classes in the Kellogg Auditorium and I was hoping he would remember eating in Mrs. Ou’s cafeteria, but unfortunately, he did not. If anyone has pictures of Mrs. Ou’s cafeteria, please send them so I can post them in the next column.

—Bob Joyner

Catherine Florio Pipas MD, MPH ’11, Clinical Professor of Medical Education, Health Policy and Clinical Practice, and of Community and Family Medicine at Geisel School of Medicine, was recently elected by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Board of Directors to receive Distinguished Service Membership with the organization. This recognition was given for her extraordinary contributions to advancing the AAMC’s mission, and her dedication to the AAMC and the Council of Faculty and Academic Societies (CFAS).

48 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

CLASS NOTES

TDI/ Health Sciences Masters Kofi Cash (MS ’01) successfully defended his dissertation and completed his doctoral degree on February 7, 2024, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His doctorate (a DSc) is in healthcare leadership, and the title of his dissertation was “Does CEO Education Matter? The Relationship Between Doctoral-Educated Hospital CEOs and Organization Performance.”

His oral dissertation defense is viewable on YouTube at dartgo.org/ANNKofiCash.

In addition to his TDI master’s degree, he also holds a certificate in healthcare leadership from Cornell, and he is board-certified in healthcare management as a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. He is currently the executive director of operations at McLean Hospital in the Mass General Brigham Health System in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Michelle (Conway) Wozniak (MPH ’10) wrote that “after five years living overseas in Okinawa, Japan, the Wozniak family relocated to the Pacific Northwest.” In July, Michelle started a job as the prevention director for the U.S. Army I Corps at Joint Base LewisMcChord. The position executes the Department of Defense’s public health approach to preventing interpersonal and self-directed acts of harm and violence.

Andrew Paanii Quao (MPH ’10) shared the news that he left his position as COO at the start-up Redbird to start a new one—Rigelis Inc.—where, as founder and CEO, he’s leading a team to build Africa’s largest network

of decentralized primary care access points to bring high-quality, accessible, and affordable health services to one billion people by 2050. The company’s website is rigelis.co.

Cathy Florio Pipas (MPH ’11) shared two updates: “(1) Effective July 1, 2024, the Dartmouth Board of Trustees approved my status as a professor emerita of medical education, of The Dartmouth Institute, and of community and family medicine. (2) The board of directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has voted to grant me Distinguished Service Membership, for ‘extraordinary contributions to advance [the AAMC] mission. Given your dedication and service to AAMC and the Council of Faculty and Academic Societies over the years, this is an honor you richly deserve.’ Formal recognition of this election will take place during the Leadership Discussion at the AAMC’s Learn, Serve, Lead annual meeting in Atlanta on Friday, November 8.”

Salman Hussain (MPH ’16) recently graduated with an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Cameron Francis (MPH ’20) “graduated from the University of Idaho College of Law in May 2024 and will sit for the Idaho state bar in July 2024.

After passing the bar, I will be working at a local Idaho firm called Garrett Richardson, PLLC. While the firm works in various areas of the law, one area includes medical malpractice defense work, which I plan on being actively involved in.”

Kristinha Malzbender (MPH ’22) was appointed as a member of the impact board for StartUp Health’s Alzheimer’s Moonshot project, which aims to gather funders and innovators to seek strategies for tackling Alzheimer’s disease.

Mingliang Ge (MS ’23) recently “accepted a position as a research data analyst in the Department of Biomedical Data Science at Dartmouth College,

In Memoriam The following deaths have been reported to us as of September 1, 2024. To report the death of an alumnus/a, please contact Annette Achilles at 603-646-5297 or Geisel.

Alumni.Relations@dartmouth.edu.

Alumni Walter S. Price MED ’44 Warren E. Thamarus, Jr., MED ’52 Ervin Philipps MED ’58 Georges Peter MED ’62 Ralph E. Rydell MED ’63 S. Anthony Wolfe MED ’63 Arthur Forer PhD ’64 Phillip H. Taylor MED ’64 Lester A. Reid MED ’66 Ronald J. Portman MED ’76 John E. McCarthy MED ’78 Stephen J. Massicotte MED ’85 Susan F. Dunbar MED ’87 Paul M. Morton MED ’99 Nuri Na MED ’18 Faculty Donald P. Conway Mark C. Hamilton John “Jack” H. Lyons, Jr. Stephen R. Marion John E. Wennberg Margaret R. Whybrow Residents & Fellows David C. Gleason RES ’61 Edward F. Doehne RES ’63 Leonard R. Prosnitz RES ’63 Anne L. Rassiga RES ’69, FEL ’71 Thomas B. MacKenzie RES ’77

SUBMIT YOUR CLASS NOTES If you have news to share, please reach out to your class secretary directly or submit your class note to them at dartgo.org/geiselalumniupdates.

www.geiselalumni.org | 49

CLASS NOTES

starting on July 2024 under Professor Jennifer Emond’s guidance. After graduating from Dartmouth’s Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (QBS) program, I have been applying my expertise in data visualization, biostatistics, and machine learning to several impactful research projects. Currently, I am working on a project titled ‘Characterizing the relationships of genetic risk and parental coercive feeding practices with appetitive traits and adiposity gain across early life.’ In this project, I leverage advanced biostatistical methods and data wrangling skills to analyze complex datasets, providing insight into how genetic and

SHOUT OUT

RES

Petra J. Lewis MD, RES ’98, was the 2024 recipient of the Radiological Society of North America’s (RSNA) Outstanding Educator Award. Lewis will accept the award at RSNA’s annual meeting in Chicago in December. Outstanding Educator Award recipients are pioneers in their specialty who have made significant contributions to radiologic education over the last 15 years. The RSNA board of directors selects one radiologist each year that it believes best exemplifies this ideal and long-term commitment to the field.

50 | Fall 2024 | Alumni News & Notes

environmental factors influence childhood obesity. In addition, I am collaborating with Professor Jennifer Meijer on a study called ‘Dietary impact on continuous glucose monitoring (NCT05845827).’

This study explores the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and fuel utilization in adolescents and young adults. Using continuous glucose monitoring and a mobile phone application to track dietary intake, the study aims to understand how habitual diet impacts glucose levels and metabolic health. My role involves designing and executing sophisticated statistical analyses, creating detailed visualizations, and interpreting the data to identify significant health trends. I am enthusiastic about continuing my journey at Dartmouth, utilizing the robust training I received in the QBS program. I look forward to contributing to the advancement of biomedical data science through my research and collaboration with fellow alumni and other colleagues.”

—Editor

Residents & Fellows

We had some great updates this issue: Mark Gold (Plastic Surgery ’92) writes: “After 31 years of private practice in San Diego, California, I retired from the practice of plastic surgery on 1/1/2024.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to retire with my wife, Karen (we’ve been married for 33 years), and three daughters (Kelsey, Heather, and Nicole). Fun fact: Kelsey was born at the old Mary Hitchcock Hospital. I was the first resident in the Dartmouth-Hitchcock plastic surgery program. My residency began in the old Mary Hitchcock Hospital and was completed in the new hospital. I rotated for three months at the University of Massachusetts’s Worcester plastic surgery program in 1991 and for

three months at the Harvard plastic surgery program in 1992.”

Solhini Stone (Pediatrics ’11) serves as the chief medical officer for Global Employee Health at Google and is on the board of the U.S. branch of Health Care Without Harm. She was also recently named to the National Commission for Climate and Workforce Health.

Since completing her fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Wake Forest in 2021, Sarah Bingham (Pediatrics ’18) has been working as an assistant professor at Children’s of Alabama in Birmingham.

Annah Vollstedt (Urology ’19) is an assistant clinical professor at the University of Iowa.

Hugo Lara-Martinez (Internal Medicine ’21) completed his fellowship in hematology-oncology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in June 2024. He was awarded the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Young Investigator Award for 2023 for investigating the role of the tumor immune microenvironment in patients with cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. He will continue his academic career as an assistant professor of clinical medicine in hematology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, with a focus on non-malignant hematologic disorders.

Ryan Pate (Adult Psychiatry ’22) began a position as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University. After completing his general adult residency at Dartmouth, he pursued a geriatric psychiatry fellowship at Stanford and has continued his therapy training through the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. His current research focuses on developing group therapy modalities for older adult wellness and caregiver support.

I hope to hear from more of you for our next column—and send in those pictures!

—Bob Lewy

YOUR FUTURE STARTS TODAY GRADUATION. RESIDENCY. NEW JOB. MARRIAGE. RETIREMENT. You’ve worked hard to reach your goals. Now is the time to shape your legacy and consider how to make a lasting difference at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Whether giving through a will, trust, retirement account, life insurance policy, or another option, the Geisel Office of Planned Giving is here to help. We’ll help you choose a gift that aligns with your values and reflects your wishes for the future.

For more information, contact us at 603-646-5858 or Geisel.Gift.Planning@dartmouth.edu.

Visit DHGeiselPlannedGiving.org.

Office of Alumni Engagement Medical & Healthcare Advancement One Medical Center Drive (HB 7070) Lebanon, NH 03756-0001

save the date REUNION September 26-28, 2025 (0s & 5s)

Nominate an Alum

I A M T H E D R E A M:

The Past, Present and Future Awards

Nominate a fellow alum to receive one of the “I Am the Dream: The Past, Present and Future” awards from the Geisel School of Medicine’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement. Alumni can be nominated for the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award, or the Samuel F. McGill, MD Class of 1939 award.

Questions about this award program?

Contact Annette Achilles at Geisel.Alumni.Relations@dartmouth.edu

To nominate an alum, go to dartgo.org/2025MLKAwards.