Georgetown Health Magazine Winter 2024

Winter 2024

‘Forever grateful’

Medical alumnae and co-authors of The Game Plan: A Woman’s Guide to Becoming a Doctor and Living a Life in Medicine

WINTER 2024

A conversation with nurse-bioethicist Christine Grady (N’74, G’93) and her husband, new faculty member Anthony Fauci

12 ‘Find your yes’

Meet five alumnae who developed a friendship at the School of Medicine and eventually wrote a book together.

it means 18 What to be well

Learn about the many aspects of well-being, a signature focus for the School of Health’s research and academic missions.

Photo: Georgetown University Archives

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2 Editor’s Letter 3 Check Up 26 Student Point of View 28 On Campus 36 Alumni Connections 39 Book Corner 40 Reflections on Health

Cover photo: Nina Babel, Founder of NIBA Studios, LLC

News & Research

Joseph Branda, M.D. (M’72), Radiologist

From the Archives

Originally located at 35th & N Streets NW, Georgetown’s hospital moved to Reservoir Road in 1950. Today the newly expanded facility includes a host of amenities designed for efficiency and well-being. Read more on page 29.

Editor’s Letter

In the cold winter months, animals huddle together to keep warm. That closeness brings a physical warmth, but also a psychological one. Humans are the same way. When the world feels harsh, we lean on each other.

In this issue’s feature stories, we share some great examples of togetherness.

A couple that works for the common good in the public limelight but still finds time to watch birds, try new recipes, even go out dancing together. A group of friends that found each other when they needed support and stuck together through life’s journey, even writing an advice-filled book. And a Georgetown team that is focusing on how we can help bring out the best in each other.

In Reflections on Health, we highlight Joseph Branda (M’72), whose life changed dramatically when he broke his neck in a car accident near the end of his fourth year of medical school. Learning about the support he received from his Georgetown classmates and professors will remind you of the strength and empathy of the Hoya community.

There’s something about Georgetown that inspires great loyalty, as you’ll see when you read about Joseph A. Bellanti, and his 60 years of research and education at Georgetown. This professor emeritus continues to give back to the university he loves so dearly.

We hope these stories give you a sense of the tight-knit bonds that form at Georgetown, perhaps even inspire you to reach out to a special professor, mentor, or friend from your time here.

As you read the Campus News and Student Point of View sections, I’m sure you’ll agree that though things change, much remains the same. Cura personalis is front and center in our work and in our interactions. You can hear it in the therapeutic music at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, see it in the smiles of the Gateway Exploration Scholars, feel it in Professor Mandelblatt’s knitted art projects.

May the stories in this issue warm your heart during these cold, dark days.

Hold your loved ones close and celebrate the community that you lean on.

—Camille Scarborough, Editorial Team Lead

As we went to press, Georgetown held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new pavilion with President DeGioia, Philanthropist Grant Verstandig, MedStar Health senior leaders, community stakeholders, hospital associates, and CBS Evening News Anchor Norah O’Donnell (C’95, G’03), who served as event emcee. Read more on page 29.

Office of Advancement

R. Bartley Moore (SFS’87) Vice President for Advancement Amy Levin Associate Vice President for Communications Erin Greene Assistant Vice President of Creative

Georgetown Magazine Staff

Camille Scarborough, Editorial Team Lead Jane Varner Malhotra (G’21), Features Editor Elisa Morsch (G’20), Creative Director

Editorial Team

Gabrielle Barone, Karen Doss Bowman, Colin Carlson, Nowshin Chowdhury, Michael Miller, Patti North, Lauren M. Poteat, Sara Piccini, Karen Teber, Heather WilponeWelborn, Lauren Wolkoff (G’13), Kat Zambon

Design Team

Ethan Jeon, Shikha Savdas

Project Managers

Hilary Koss, Francesca Falasca

University Photographer Phil Humnicky

Georgetown Health Magazine 2115 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Suite 400 Washington, DC 20007-1253 Feedback and story ideas: healthmagazine@georgetown.edu Address changes: alumnirecords@georgetown.edu Winter 2024 | Georgetown Health Magazine Georgetown Health Magazine is distributed free of charge to alumni, parents, faculty, and staff. The diverse views in the magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official policies of the university.

Georgetown University provides equal opportunity in employment for all persons, and prohibits unlawful discrimination and harassment in all aspects of employment because of age, color, disability, family responsibilities, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, matriculation, national origin, personal appearance, political affiliation, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran’s status, or any other factor prohibited by law. Additionally, the university will use good-faith efforts to achieve ethnic and gender diversity throughout the workforce. The university emphasizes recruitment of women, minority members, disabled individuals, and veterans. Inquiries regarding Georgetown University’s nondiscrimination policy may be addressed to the Director of Affirmative Action Programs, Institutional Diversity, Equity & Affirmative Action, 37th and O Sts. NW, Suite M36, Darnall Hall, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057, or call 202-687-4798. © 2024 Georgetown University This issue includes FSC-certified paper.

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C HECK UP

Photos: Georgetown University / O’Neill Family Foundation Clinical Simulation Center

‘Escape room’ teaches nurses how to work under pressure n n One locked room, five or six Georgetown students, one hour or less. The objective: to work as a team, putting their skills to the test to escape the simulation room faster than their peers in seven other groups.

“Escape rooms have historically served as an entertainment or recreational activity, but they are gaining popularity in a variety of health care-related fields,” explains Megan McAuliffe, assistant professor and simulation laboratory director of Georgetown’s Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice Program. “Our students are immersed in a scenario and challenged with a specific goal where they must work collaboratively to uncover clues, complete tasks, and solve puzzles within a time-constrained environment.”

The stressful environment of an escape room mimics the pressure of the clinical environment where these future nurse anesthetists will practice. All students who participated in the escape room simulation were in their first semester of the Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice Program (DNAP), a rigorous three-year program that trains graduates to become certified by the National Board of Certification and Recertification for Nurse Anesthetists (NBCRNA).

“It was such a fun way to think through all of the things we had learned the past semester,” says Ally Tromer (G’26).

“We now want escape rooms for anatomy and everything else we do in labs.” n

During their first semester in the Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice Program, School of Nursing students put their skills to the test for an “Escape Room” simulation in the O'Neill Family Foundation Clinical Simulation Center. The simulation was created by Assistant Professor Megan McAuliffe, DNP, CRNA.

FAST-MOVING FUNDRAISER

Georgetown Special Master’s Program (SMP) students participated in the Wheel 2 Win wheelchair basketball tournament to benefit the United Spinal Metro DC Chapter.

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CHECK UP

Study explores the dangers of working in extreme heat n n Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, School of Health professor Rosemary K. Sokas and her colleague Emily Senay from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai outline three steps to close gaps in the management of workers impacted by extreme heat conditions: (1) more careful medical oversight of workers’ health, particularly of high-risk workers; (2) regulatory oversight of acclimatization and modified work–rest cycles; and (3) clinician support for workers during office visits to assess for heat risks.

“Most importantly, clinicians could work with their member organizations to advocate for meaningful regulatory and legislative action to protect workers amid the escalating climate crisis,” the authors write.

Federal and state data substantially underestimate heat-related mortality owing to underrecognition, misclassification, and failure to capture heat-associated exacerbations of underlying conditions and increases in traumatic injuries. n

Kombucha may help people with type 2 diabetes had lower fasting blood glucose levels compared to when they consumed a similar-tasting placebo beverage, according to results from a clinical trial conducted by researchers at Georgetown University’s School of Health, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and MedStar Health. This finding, from a pilot 12-person feasibility trial, was reported in Frontiers in Nutrition in August 2023.

Kombucha, a tea fermented with bacteria and yeasts, was consumed as early as 200 B.C. in China but did not become popular in the U.S. until the 1990s. Its popularity has been bolstered by anecdotal health claims.

The current study points to the potential for a dietary intervention that could help lower blood sugar levels in people with diabetes and also establishes the basis for a larger trial to confirm and expand upon these results.

“To our knowledge this is the first clinical trial examining effects of kombucha in people with diabetes,” says Georgetown study author Dan Merenstein, professor of human science in the School of Health and professor of family medicine at the School of Medicine. “A lot more research needs to be done, but this is very promising.” n

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Photos: iStock / Courtesy of Craft Kombucha

n n People with Type 2 diabetes who drank kombucha for four weeks

Healthy Aging Symposium focuses on cognitive function n n Many people are familiar with the downsides of cognition with aging, including greater problems with forgetfulness, word-finding, and multitasking. However, not all aspects of cognition decline. For example, Georgetown Professor of Neuroscience, Neurology, and Psychology Michael Ullman and his colleagues found that orienting (shifting attention to a given spatial location) and inhibition (detecting and inhibiting conflicting information) actually seem to improve with age.

According to Ullman, these improvements are likely attributable to experience. “We’re constantly inhibiting distracting information, which can lead to improvements in this ability over time,” he said at the second annual Healthy Aging Symposium.

Cognitive decline is also moderated by social activity, explains Maxine Weinstein, distinguished professor in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and director of the Georgetown Center for Population and Health. “We found that greater social activity predicted better cognition,” she said. “Being socially engaged helps preserve cognitive function, at least as far as we can tell.”

The symposium was sponsored in part by the Center for Healthy Aging, which launched about two years ago with a goal of bringing educators, scholars, and researchers together around the topic of aging, from bench to bedside to the community. n

Transforming speech into tactile vibrations n n Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center, in collaboration with George Washington University, leveraged their understanding of auditory speech processing in the brain to enable volunteers to perceive speech through the sense of touch. This may aid in the design of novel sensory substitution devices—swapping sound for touch, for example—for hearing-impaired people.

“In the past few years, our understanding of how the brain processes information from different senses has expanded greatly as we are starting to understand how brain networks are connected across different sensory pathways, such as vision, hearing and touch,” says Maximilian Riesenhuber, professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Georgetown

University Medical Center and senior author of the study that appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience last May. “For instance, previous work has shown that Braille words can activate the visual brain areas of blind individuals. This suggests that input from the touch system activates their visual system. Similar connections exist in individuals without sensory impairments, such as those between the hearing and touch system. These connections offer the intriguing possibility that it might be possible to process speech through the sense of touch by coming up with a way to effectively couple information from the sense of touch into the auditory speech system.” n

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By Jane Varner Malhotra | Design By Ethan Jeon

Photo: Lisa Helfert

How nurse-bioethicist Christine Grady (N’74, G’93) and her husband, new faculty member Anthony Fauci, live their commitment to public service, health, and each other

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n May 2023, the World Health Organization declared an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency. It marked the official close to a difficult chapter in human history, with

nearly seven million deaths from the virus, and immeasurable hardship that impacted people the world over.

Countless Hoyas played a part in pandemic preparedness, biomedical research, and critical health care delivery during this time.

In particular, two individuals helped shape the public health response in the U.S. and they happen to be married to each other.

They are double Hoya Christine Grady (N’74, G’93), who heads bioethics at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and her National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH and is now Distinguished University Professor at Georgetown.

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Photo: Lisa Helfert

husband, Anthony Fauci, who recently retired as director of the

After more than 50 years with the NIH, Fauci had tempting offers to share his expertise at leading institutions across the country. In July 2023 he officially joined the faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, as well as the McCourt School of Public Policy.

Fauci, an immunologist, infectious disease researcher, and advisor to seven U.S. presidents, deeply values his education at Jesuit schools. Grady and Fauci were married in 1985 in Dahlgren Chapel, and they celebrated the births of their three children at Georgetown’s hospital.

Grady, an accomplished scientist and nurse bioethicist, studied biology at the School of Nursing and earned her Ph.D. in bioethics at Georgetown. Known internationally for her thought leadership on ethical issues in clinical research and clinical care, she is a senior investigator at the NIH, where she serves as chief of their Clinical Center’s Department of Bioethics and head of the department’s Section on Human Subjects Research. From 2010–2017 she was a member of the President’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.

Staying connected to her alma mater, Grady is currently a faculty affiliate at Georgetown’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics.

She has contributed extensively to biomedical and bioethics literature, on topics such as informed consent in clinical research, measuring moral distress, and the ethics of vaccine development.

As dedicated public servants and leaders in the national and global health arena, Grady and Fauci share a deep commitment to the common good. In their personal and professional lives, how do their individual views and expertise inform one another? How do they support each other while retaining their individual identities, especially after the challenges of the last four years? What role do Jesuit values play in shaping their work?

Georgetown Health Magazine sat down with the doctors to talk about their partnership—where they’ve been, what’s ahead as they deepen their connection to Georgetown, and what they do for fun.

Dr. Grady, you were a Georgetown student in the early 1970s. What memory stands out from your time on the Hilltop?

Christine Grady (CG): It was a tumultuous time in the world. During my first year, May Day brought Vietnam War protests all over the city and the campus basically shut down, surrounded by the National Guard. I went with friends to protest downtown and had trouble getting back on campus.

Some classmates were worried about participating because it was exam week. But in those days it seemed like there were bigger, more important things to do.

It was an extraordinary experience—not only the demonstrations themselves, but on campus they set up soup kitchens on the lawn behind the dorms. People were in DC from all over the country so we were serving soup, they were sleeping in tents on the lawn…

Anthony Fauci (AF): I was a young physician at NIH in Bethesda at the time and was involved with helping to drive an ambulance around, picking up people who got tear-gassed.

CG: We didn’t know each other at all.

AF: But we were both here.

CG: At the School of Nursing there was a lot of change in the way we learned about being nurses. The new curriculum had a more holistic, more autonomous focus with interesting faculty role models. Because this activism surrounded us, everybody was very engaged in these curriculum discussions.

When did your paths cross?

CG: Almost 10 years after I graduated from Georgetown, I was a new nurse at the NIH. He had already been there for 15 years. I had just returned from spending two years in Brazil with Project HOPE, and a Brazilian patient with vasculitis was in my unit, so we spent a lot of time chatting in Portuguese. He had been there a month and was homesick. He said, “Can you convince my doctors to send me home?” So I called a meeting with the two fellows and the attending—Tony.

Tony has a style that’s very serious and professional. He said the patient could go home, if he promised to do his dressings every day, keep his leg elevated, and take it easy. So I told that to Pedro, and he said, with a very straight face, in Portuguese, “I can’t do that. I’ve been in this hospital forever.

I’m gonna go to the beach every day and go dancing at night.”

So I thought, okay, now what do I do? I turned to them and said, “He says he’ll do exactly what you said.” So they discharged him.

Two days later, Tony comes to me on rounds, and says, “I’d like to see you in my office.” And I thought, whoops!

Caught. But when I went to his office, he said, “How’d you like to go out to dinner?”

AF: Something we could not do today!

CG: So that’s our origin story.

AF: Chris has phenomenal clinical judgment. She figured the psychological advantage of the patient going home outweighed the disadvantage of him possibly being too active.

CG: He really wanted to go home. His recovery was going to be long. I knew that if he was in pain, or if he needed dressings, he wasn’t going to dance all night. He was kind of teasing.

How does bioethics factor in both of your worlds?

Is it your dinner conversation, or is it off the table when you’re home?

AF: The way I have guided my career is that you maintain the highest level of integrity and ethical conduct in the care of your patient, which should be the underlying driving force of every physician. But my sense of ethics was “the instinct to do the right thing.”

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As a professional ethicist, Chris opened my eyes to the complexity of the discipline of ethics. The nuances and the questions you ask—that I learned from her.

CG: As a practicing nurse, there were interesting issues that I ran into, complex decisions and actions that I didn’t know were bioethics. As I started to learn and think more about it, I realized that there is an area of gray in a lot of what we do in life. It’s not like you know what to do right away.

Over the last 30 years, health care professionals think more about bioethics. There are also more resources available to help providers.

We talk about bioethics at home. But we also talk about science. His world and my world have enough overlap that there are things that we do talk about quite a bit. But it’s not the only thing we talk about. We also talk about politics and the weather and the neighbors and birds— AF: We love birds!

CG: Bioethics is definitely something that comes into our conversation often. Every once in a while, there’ll be a situation at work, and I come home and say, What do you think about this? And he has some good insights, things that I hadn’t thought about. And he does that too.

AF: Sometimes I ask about a scientific thing. She’s a pretty good scientist.

CG (laughing): Pretty good.

AF: She’s internationally known as an ethicist, but she understands science. She asks the right questions. She never lets you fast-talk her to the next step. She says, Time out.

What are you talking about? Explain that.

Often I say, Here’s where I want to get to. But before I get there, she’ll ask three questions. It slows you down and gets you to really think about what you’re asking.

CG: That’s how I do bioethics, too. One of the best ways to have conversations with people about what the ethical issues are is to ask questions. The questions help us understand what the situation is. It’s a useful methodology.

When did you earn your Ph.D.?

CG: I started in 1986 and finished in 1993.

AF: By the way, she was doing three full-time jobs at the time, getting a Ph.D., working at the NIH, and raising three children.

Given everything you two have been through in recent years, how do you manage?

CG: I will admit, there are moments that are hard. But I think for the most part, we have a good life, we have a great relationship, and we support each other. I couldn’t have gotten through these last few years, maybe the last few decades, without Tony. We have wonderful children and friends, and work that is intellectually and emotionally stimulating and satisfying.

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AF: There’s no way I would have gotten through the stressful early years of HIV, to Ebola and anthrax, Zika and multiple different presidents that I worked with, and then the last three years of COVID—it would have been impossible without her. With credible death threats and harassment, it disrupts the normality of your life. It’s not normal, nor does it feel good, to have armed federal agents with you wherever you go. That’s been a terrible stress on Chris and on me, but if I didn’t have her, it would have been almost impossible.

One thing that’s really important in the story of our relationship is that she’s one of the most respected ethicists in the country. But in the early years, she didn’t do a lot of things that would have hastened her recognition, because she was doing things like being the Brownie mother and filling in as a substitute in school when teachers got sick, or taking the kids to every crew and track meet.

CG: I loved every minute of it. I don’t regret a single thing.

AF: She was doing that at the same time as she was turning down offers of the stepwise academic career that would have gotten her to here 10 years earlier.

CG: Though I would have missed out on a lot.

AF: I think our kids turned out really good, mostly because of Chris.

What’s something that your kids have taught you?

CG: They have taught us that you can work hard and play hard. Some of that is in reaction to watching work, work, work and not enough play. Also our kids are others-centric— they pay attention to other people and the world around them.

AF: You said it well. They are unselfish and not ego-involved.

Where do you have diverging perspectives? (here they exchange knowing glances and laugh) AF: There are no substantial divergent things in our fundamental life principles.

CG: I think that’s true.

AF: There are peripheral things…

CG: For example, there may be people I do not like because of their political stances and ideology or what they’ve done.

And Tony, sometimes, if he knows them, says, Oh, but they’re fundamentally a nice person. And I’m like, Okay, well, what does that mean, when they do these things that are bad for the world?

AF: I tend to look at the good in everyone.

CG: I do, too.

AF: Another divergence is I am obsessive about being on time. And she usually hangs loose. Like the other night, we were supposed to go sign some books at a big gala. And I said be home at 5:30 so we could get there at 6:00.

CG: And the traffic was terrible!

Despite their extremely busy and stressful careers, the couple makes time for fun—cooking, birdwatching, fishing—a lesson learned from their three children.

“They have taught us that you can work hard and play hard,” Grady says. “We have a good life and we support each other.”

AF (winking): And she stopped off and had a beer with some of her friends…

Photos: Courtesy of Christine Grady and Anthony Fauci

CG (laughing): I did not! I do prioritize having fun. I take trips, I go places with friends.

discovering and learning about birds. Doing puzzles at night together. Watching movies … although she falls asleep most of the time.

CG: We also love to dance. We don’t get enough dancing in.

AF: I used to be that way, before I got this disease that when you have an infinite amount of work, you have to put in an infinite amount of time. I got that when I started taking care of HIV patients in 1981. There was so much to do that taking time off was a bad thing.

AF: We love to dance.

What about during the pandemic?

CG: He was so darn busy that for a year or more he hardly knew what day it was.

AF: We also get invited to events with interesting people and almost never do it without each other. We feel this humility —we are very thankful for the opportunities.

AF: She saved me. One night she said, That’s enough. You’ve got to drink water, you’ve got to eat, you’ve got to get more than four hours of sleep. She really took charge.

Georgetown is a place where people of all faiths, including no faith, are nurtured and encouraged to explore this aspect of our lives. What does this mean to you as scientists?

AF: I won’t speak for Chris, but for me Georgetown is a place that reflects the principles I learned from my parents and which were fortified at Jesuit schools: integrity, honesty, caring for others, and contributing to society. I’ve lived my entire life that way, and I feel fortunate now to spend the last years of my professional career at an institution that is founded on those principles—

What are you both anticipating about your connection to Georgetown going forward?

AF: The Jesuit value of service for others deepened during my formative years at Regis High School and at Holy Cross, and for Chris at Georgetown. When I decided to step down from the NIH, I thought, While I’m still healthy and sharp, what can I offer to society? I believe I can inspire younger people to get involved in science, medicine, public health, and hopefully public service.

CG: When this seemed like the right choice for him, I was all for it. The Jesuit values are consistent with who he is and what he wants to do.

What do you do for fun?

AF: This may sound too romantic, but just being with each other is fun to me. That means walking, watching birds,

CG: We like to swim. He likes to fish.

AF: She doesn’t like to fish as much as I do.

CG: But I like to go along and be outside.

CG: And embodies them. The only one I would add to your list is community. Georgetown has a community of people who have like-minded values. I hope students treasure the moments they have there, to be part of a learning community, a service community, a community of people who care about the world. n

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Co-authors of The Game Plan: A Woman’s Guide to Becoming a Doctor and Living a Life in Medicine: (seated, left to right) Jessica Osborn, M.D.; Leah Matthews, M.D., MPH; Angela C.B. Walker, M.D.; (standing, left to right) Diane Boykin, M.D.; Sylvia E. Morris, M.D., MPH

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Photo: Nina Babel, Founder of NIBA Studios, LLC

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n the early 1990s, a group of five women— Diane Boykin (M’98), Leah Matthews (M’97), Sylvia Morris (M’98), Jessica Osborn (M’97), and Angela Walker (M’97) —developed a friendship as students at Georgetown School of Medicine.

They formed a lasting bond, sharing major life milestones of marriage, childbirth, and loss of parents, as well as the day-to-day joys and frustrations they encountered as practicing physicians. From their first “girls’ trip” to Las Vegas during their residencies to a recent foray to Miami, they have made an intentional practice of meeting annually, a tradition they call “the glue for our continued friendship.”

Out of their conversations grew an idea— to write a book for women contemplating a career in medicine, providing the information and advice they all wished they’d had before entering medical school.

The Game Plan: A Woman’s Guide to Becoming a Doctor and Living a Life in Medicine offers a comprehensive, practical guide for aspiring women physicians, from taking the MCATs and applying to medical school, to choosing a specialty, to making a job change.

The book takes a holistic approach, encompassing both the personal and professional, with frank revelations from each of the authors about the challenges they’ve faced as women in a male-dominated career field.

One especially distinctive feature is “A Day in the Life,” designed to show how extremely busy physicians attempt to achieve work/life balance. The book provides a detailed, hour-by-hour description of each woman’s typical day—seeing patients, performing surgery, being on call, getting kids ready for school, preparing meals, and mundane tasks like doing the laundry.

“The idea was to share the real-life activities that add hours to your day, especially those things you typically don’t talk about, certainly not in medical school or even with mentors,” says Walker, an OB/GYN currently serving as medical director for Humana.

“One mother I spoke with said that she was going to have her daughter, who wasn’t planning to go into medicine, read the book because of the practical advice we offer for professional women in general,” she continues. “That’s a bonus that wasn’t on my radar.”

By Sara Piccini | Design By Shikha Savdas

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Progress and trade-offs

When four of the authors met as students in the 1992–1993 academic year, it marked the first time nationally that women made up 40% of incoming medical school classes, up from less than 10% prior to 1970.

Even then, there was little discussion of women’s particular concerns as physicians. “The one time I remember hearing about being a woman in medicine was at a small panel with Dr. [Joan] St. Onge and a group of other women,” says Osborn, an internist in private practice in Washington, DC. “They answered questions for us about their schedules, having children, and other issues. It definitely had an impact.

“Our class did not look like the 1970 class with three women, but we weren’t an overwhelming presence either. It was an acknowledgment that we were there.”

Despite significant progress—the 2023–2024 entering class at Georgetown School of Medicine is 63% female— the authors are candid about the obstacles female physicians still face.

Many people, for example, still envision a white man in the “Marcus Welby” mode as the norm.

“I always wear my long white lab coat that has my name ‘Sylvia Morris, M.D., MPH.’ I introduce myself as Dr. Morris. I’ll sit down and have a long conversation at the bedside with the patient, then go out to write my notes. Later the patient will say, ‘Oh, you know, a nurse came in, but I haven’t seen a doctor,’” says Morris, a hospitalist with Kaiser Permanente in Atlanta.

“Sometimes patients want to call me by my first name or won’t address me as ‘doctor.’ I’m quite certain it’s because I’m a woman, although there may be some racial aspect woven in,” continues Morris, who is Black, as are her four co-authors. “It’s very interesting that even today the perception of what a physician looks like still tends to be male.”

On the personal side, even with a supportive spouse, women physicians often have to make trade-offs in terms of the kind of practice they enter. As Boykin, an OB/GYN with Kaiser Permanente in Baltimore, writes in The Game Plan: “I have a rotating call schedule that ensures when I am not on call, I don’t have to come to the hospital for deliveries.

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It is very important that my children grow up with a mom who has a predictable work schedule.”

Issues like being on call, long hours, and dealing with lifeand-death situations can put significant stress on couples. For those women physicians whose partners are men, the authors also raise a concern that can often be sensitive to discuss: the potential strain on a relationship when a woman earns more than her male partner.

Emotional labor

In addressing the special demands women doctors face, The Game Plan contains a forthright discussion of the cost of “emotional labor.”

A term coined by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, emotional labor refers to the process of regulating emotional expressions as part of one’s professional work role during interactions with clients, customers, co-workers, and managers. For example, flight attendants are expected to smile and be friendly even when a passenger is rude or threatening.

“For me, probably more so in the ’90s and early 2000s, I felt that male physicians could be abrupt and on the rude side, and people would say, ‘Oh, he’s just that way,’” says Osborn. “But a woman has to be nice. It’s almost like being in church on Sunday with your grandmother. There’s a certain way that you have to behave or you’ll be corrected.”

Matthews, a pediatrician practicing with Texas Children’s Pediatrics in Houston, describes a previous experience working for a large organization where administrators without medical backgrounds dictated policy.

“I perceived that my patients had additional expectations of me as a female physician, ones they did not have of the male physicians in my group,” she writes. “Many administrators didn’t understand emotional labor or didn’t care.”

Finally, she says, “I took my reputation, created from my emotional labor, and left.”

With patient satisfaction surveys becoming increasingly important in physician compensation, women doctors may feel even more pressure, the authors note. As Boykin says, “In today’s world, people are more demanding—it takes a lot of emotional energy. Each patient gets a piece of me and a piece of my heart.”

Even when being a woman physician is an advantage, it can be a double-edged sword. “I was working in a big practice where the majority of patients were requesting a female OB,” says Walker. “My numbers kept going up and up.

“On the one hand, it was an ego booster,” she continues, “but because I am an empath and tend to spend more time with patients, it became more of a burden for me. When it got to the point where I came home and felt irritated with my kids, I said, ‘Something’s got to give.’”

Although her salary was based on the number of deliveries she performed, she decided to reduce the number. “It was the best decision I could have ever made.”

In the past several years, with the rise in public awareness of disproportionate Black maternal mortality rates, Walker has faced new demands on her time. “The data showed that women were having better outcomes when they had a Black female physician,” she says.

“That was certainly a different type of burden for me, but I was at a point in my career when I knew I couldn’t go beyond my boundaries.”

The business of medicine

Woven throughout The Game Plan is an emphasis on a neglected aspect of medical education for both women and men: the nuts-and-bolts of finances and business operations.

Although the medical school curriculum is jam-packed, all of the authors agree that financial education should be an essential part of training. “You have to make room for it,” Osborn says.

“I remember my mentor Dr. John Eisenberg [former chair of the department of medicine at Georgetown] telling me, ‘You should get an MBA,’” Morris says. “I was in public health school at the time, and I said, ‘Well, no, I want to be surgeon general.’ Today I wish I had gone to business school.

“I’m not saying that everyone needs an MBA or a master’s in medical management, but you need to know how to save, how to create a spreadsheet for what your Q-tips cost—really practical information that probably could be taught one hour a quarter during the first two years of medical school.”

“Residency programs don’t really talk about finance and money management either,” Boykin adds. “It’s kind of taboo.

Doctors really don’t discuss income and share that information.

Photo: Nina Babel, Founder of NIBA Studios, LLC

“Each year we meet for a girls’ trip to relax, relate, and recharge,” the authors write.

“By the end of our weekends, we armed to continue to face the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated world.”

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“While I love pediatrics and my current employer, the stress of paying for my Georgetown education with the lowest compensated specialty is overwhelming,” she notes. “The struggle is real.”

Advice for a new generation

Sharing their collective wisdom for the upcoming generation of women physicians, the authors emphasize the critical importance of mentorship.

“One of the things that we address in the book, and hopefully we continue to improve on, is encouraging women at the beginning of their career to identify mentors,” Boykin says. Although she recognizes that it is a lofty ideal, she recommends that medical schools institute programs to match incoming women students with women mentors in leadership positions.

Another key piece of advice is practicing self-care. “Continue to foster your relationships and don’t put them on hold,” Walker says.

“Start to practice mindfulness behavior at the beginning, because the stress of medicine does not stop after medical school and residency— it’s a continuum.”

Morris and Osborn both recommend that aspiring and current medical students get broad exposure to different types of specialties, both by taking electives and by shadowing practicing physicians. “You may think you want to do x, but you don’t know that you’d be good at y and z unless you have some type of experience with that,” Morris says.

“There was a female cardiothoracic surgeon I knew whose father was a psychiatrist, and she was exposed to different fields of medicine as a kid,” Osborn says. “For me, cardiothoracic surgery was reaching for the stars, but she knew she could do it. That’s why I recommend shadowing, to find out the reality and what really interests you.”

Morris adds another helpful piece of guidance based on her own experience. “You’re going to hear no. But sometimes that voice within says, ‘I think I can.’ So you have to find your yes.

“When I was considering my residency, I went to my clerkship director and showed him my list. He said, ‘Well … have you considered these other schools?’ I knew with my heart that I’d rather have the schools I wanted to apply to tell me no, instead of my own voice telling me no. I ended up matching with the University of Washington, and the rest is history.”

(Top) Celebrating SOM graduation in 1998; (Bottom) Four of the co-authors met on the first day as students in the Georgetown Experimental Medical Studies (GEMS) program; Matthews was introduced to the group by Walker, an undergraduate classmate at Texas A&M.

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Photos: Courtesy of Diane Boykin, Leah Matthews, Sylvia Morris, Jessica Osborn, and Angela Walker

“For physicians who go into private practice, the different models of pay can be challenging if you’ve never been educated on how that system actually works,” she says. Walker notes that newly minted doctors are often far behind their peers in other professions requiring graduate degrees, such as law and business, in terms of earning income and may not make the wisest spending decisions.

Although the authors stress that “the most important thing to do is practice what you love,” medical students and residents must look with a clear eye at the income disparity among different specialties.

At the time she was co-authoring The Game Plan, pediatrician Matthews still had $35,000 in medical school loans— despite participating in a Texas state loan repayment program for treating an underserved population.

A beautiful friendship

With a first published book out in the world, the group has no immediate plans to write a follow-up—although as Morris says, “Only time will tell.”

“One of our counselors at Georgetown, Dean Emerita Joy Williams, read the book and told us, ‘I’m ready for the sequel on how to manage from the peak of your career towards retirement,’” Osborn notes.

The friendship that gave birth to the book will continue to remain central to all the women’s lives, however, serving as a model for physicians of all genders, young and old.

“The best thing that came from the book was really learning that having a community of people around is extremely important,” Morris says. “That not only applies to us as physicians and professional women, but to everyone.

“There’s something about bearing witness to each other’s lives, starting back in our 20s and continuing through. We may not see each other every day, but I know I can pick up the phone or text, and these women will show up for me.”

Walker echoes that sentiment: “I have a spouse, I have a best friend from high school, but when it comes to medicine, they never understand when I’m complaining about something that happened during my day because they haven’t lived it. But these ladies have lived it.

“We have fellowship, we have fun, we laugh, we cry. I have complete understanding and empathy from them.”

One reviewer wrote of The Game Plan, “I got this from an attending and absolutely loved it! It’s like having five different mentors at the same time.”

Loyal Hoyas

All five women express appreciation for both the enduring values that define Georgetown medicine and the changes— particularly in the composition of the faculty and student body—that have occurred since they attended the School of Medicine, with particular thanks to the Georgetown Experimental Medical Studies, or GEMS, program of which Boykin, Morris, Osborn and Walker were beneficiaries, and which they hope serves students well into the future.

“I’m very impressed by the selection of Dean Jones,” says Morris, referring to Lee Jones, dean for medical education and professor of psychiatry, who joined the Georgetown faculty in 2021.

Jones, a national leader in efforts to advance equity and inclusion in medical schools in the U.S., currently serves as chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges Board of Directors. “He’s a wonderful human being and a fantastic addition to the Georgetown family,” Morris adds.

“The mention of cura personalis has come up so much recently wherever I go,” Walker says. “People who have experience with Georgetown know that we truly care about the community that we’re serving, and I treasure that. It bodes well for Georgetown, and we feel it in our group.”

“I’m in DC, and my family has chosen to have our care at Georgetown—that’s for a reason,” Osborn says. While the commitment to cura personalis remains the same, she notes that today’s MedStar Georgetown University Hospital is far more diverse than when she trained there in the 1990s, a much-welcomed change.

“Walking the halls of the hospital—the sounds, the languages, the makeup of the people—is very different from when I was a student,” she says.

“Georgetown brought us together, so I’m forever grateful that Georgetown said yes to me,” Morris says. “Clearly the universe aligned such that I could meet these four other wonderful women that helped me get through. Because I wouldn’t be the woman that I am now without them.” n

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By Lauren Wolkoff | Design By Shikha Savdas

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T

he world is facing a silent but growing public health crisis—a decline in mental health and well-being.

People’s experiences of negative emotions, such as sadness, worry, stress, and anger, have reached a record high, according to Gallup’s 2023 Global Emotions Report. While COVID-19 played a significant role in the decrease in mental health and well-being, the trend long predates the pandemic. Today, multiple concurrent forces, including war, climate disasters, economic uncertainty, xenophobia, and political upheaval, continue to directly undermine people’s sense of well-being.

This is not just about feelings, however—there is a well-established link between well-being and health, both physical and mental. Negative emotions are associated with an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and dementia, among other serious physical conditions, in addition to mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Two prime examples of negative emotions, loneliness and social isolation, have been closely linked to poor health outcomes. An oft-cited 2010 study found that chronic loneliness is as detrimental to one’s health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Other research has determined that loneliness and isolation can increase the risk of premature death by as much as 30 percent.

Though the warning light is flashing, the world’s public health infrastructure and attitudes are not oriented to contend with a crisis of well-being, experts say.

A signature focus Georgetown’s new School of Health seeks to reshape the conversation around wellbeing and health by asking: “What does it mean to be well?” Launched in 2022, the school is explicitly and intentionally centering well-being as a signature focus for its research and academic missions.

School of Health Dean Christopher J. King says the focus is a natural fit.

“To improve the health of individuals, communities, and populations, we have to center well-being,” King says. “People do better for the world when we are doing well—when all our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs are nurtured. But this broader picture has too often been missing from the conversation around health.”

For King, the focus reinforces the school’s commitment to approaching health through an interdisciplinary lens.

“We can’t focus on well-being and health without having different disciplines and sectors at the table,” King says. “For example, if we don’t engage the social sciences, history, linguistics, and other disciplines, we are missing an enormous opportunity.”

In this spirit, two School of Health faculty members, Shabab Wahid and Derek Griffith, along with other collaborators from across Georgetown, responded to a call for proposals from King to submit a “big idea” to the School of Health. Their idea, which was selected by the school’s leadership, is to create a Global Mental Health & Well-being Initiative that builds on work undertaken across the university.

This interdisciplinary initiative will pilot research, pedagogy, and advocacy around mental wellness and psychosocial issues, bringing together more than 40 Georgetown faculty, staff, and affiliates from the School of Health, School of Foreign Service, College of Arts & Sciences, School of Medicine, the Center for Global Health Science and Security, and the Law Center.

“To improve the health of individuals, communities, and populations, we have to center well-being.

People do better for the world when we are doing well— when all our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs are nurtured.

—Christopher J. King

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Christopher J. King, Ph.D., MHSc, FACHE, dean of the School of Health and associate professor of Health Management and Policy, greeted attendees personally at last fall’s School of Health Open House in St. Mary’s Hall. Dean King has been formulating the mission and vision of the new school.

—Christopher J. King

The school’s focus complements Georgetown’s role as one of six co-creators of the Wellbeing Project, a global partnership to help advance the well-being of those working in social change and education. Georgetown, the only higher education partner, is joined

by Ashoka, Impact Hub, Porticus, the Skoll Foundation, and Synergos.

By leveraging the university’s existing strengths in this area, King says the School of Health is well-positioned to be a leader in establishing well-being as central to health.

“I see this as our opportunity to deepen and expand the conversation around wellbeing—among our students, in our communities, and around the globe—as a key driver of helping people live healthy and fulfilling lives,” King says.

An elusive definition With no universally accepted definition, the term “well-being” can be challenging to pin down.

Well-being can be thought of as the fullest embodiment of mental, physical, psychological, and spiritual health, including healthy relationships, social ties, a sense of empowerment and belonging, and emotional resiliency, among other variables. But it can also be defined by the absence of social ills, such as loneliness, isolation, violence, racism and bigotry, political disenfranchisement, and exclusion.

“What is important to remember is that well-being is not solely objective. It is not only what somebody else observes, but also necessitates inclusion of a person’s own subjective assessment of their own state of health,” says Wahid, assistant professor in the department of global health at the School of Health, who studies the interrelationship between climate change and mental health and well-being.

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Photos: Dynamic Reel Productions

“I see this as our opportunity to deepen and expand the conversation around well-being ... as a key driver of helping people live healthy and fulfilling lives.”

According to Griffith, professor of health management Drawing inspiration and policy at the School of Health, well-being can be The important recognition of the link between well-being defined as that which gives your life meaning and purpose. and overall health is gaining traction—with a few prominent “I think of it as the founding principles of our country: life, international leadership models making headlines. liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he says. “It is about In 2018, the United Kingdom established a new cabiwhat we are trying to achieve in life and what things are net position, the Minister of Loneliness. The following important to us about being alive.” year, New Zealand introduced its first “well-being budget,” In formulating the mission and vision of the new school, which identified outcomes such as human health, safety, Georgetown is leaning into existing international frameworks. and flourishing to assess the success of policies, rather than The World Health Organization (WHO) explicitly links sticking with conventional economic metrics such as gross health with well-being, conceptualizing health as a human domestic product. right requiring both physical and social resources to achieve In April 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and maintain. In its 1948 charter, the WHO defines health declared an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation,” and set as a “state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being out a framework for a new and unprecedented National and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.”

Strategy to Advance Social Connection.

Griffith explains that despite a growing recognition of “These are examples of true leadership,” says Wahid. these linkages, most policies are framed around an overly “They reflect a world facing a variety of social ills and politnarrow definition of health. ical polarization that make us feel like our society is ripping “We need to be looking beyond whether somebody is diag- itself apart, and that contribute to us feeling disconnected nosed with a disease or an illness,” Griffith says. from our fellow citizens.”

The School of Health aims to spark conversation around Building on these examples, the School of Health has an these disconnects, and to strengthen the evidence base to opportunity to train health policymakers and practitioners support policies that promote well-being. on how to improve measurement of well-being.

“We are committed to evolving the science around social “In the U.S., we don’t have objective, measurable smart well-being and health: identifying what has been done, what goals associated with well-being as we do for other metrics is the next frontier, and where there are gaps and barriers to of health,” Griffith says. “So we are on par with other counour understanding,” King says. tries that are recognizing its importance, but not on par with

Attendees at the Open House included (left to right) Bryan O. Buckley, DrPH, MPH, MBA director for Health Equity Initiatives at the National Committee for Quality Assurance; Georgetown School of Health Dean Christopher J. King; Carrie Stoltzfus, MPH, executive director of Food and Friends.

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those that are actually already doing a good job of measuring or addressing well-being.”

In a move to address this discrepancy, Griffith led the development of a model to ensure that a new strategic plan for addressing health disparities for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke is anchored in both health and well-being.

Rise of ‘climate emotions’ Founded with an explicit emphasis on advancing equity, the School of Health’s driving force is to educate a new generation of health professionals who understand that equity is intrinsic to health. This focus, ranging from the local to the global, is a natural companion to the focus on well-being.

For example, Wahid’s research on the intersection between climate change and well-being is rooted in equity issues, as climate disasters tend to disproportionately impact those in lower-resource settings.

“Climate change has been described as the biggest global health threat of this century—there is no doubt it will impact every aspect of health,” he says.

In a national population survey in Bangladesh, Wahid and colleagues found that with every one degree Celsius increase in temperature, there are corresponding statistically significant higher odds of developing anxiety, or anxiety coupled with depression. Similarly, those populations that had experienced massive flooding had significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression.

Wahid is also collaborating with Emily Mendenhall, a medical anthropologist and professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, and Edna Bosire, at the Brain and Mind Institute at the Aga Khan University in Kenya, on a small project in Kilifi, Kenya, to look at the impact of severe drought on people’s well-being.

According to Wahid, drought—and the ensuing changes to the landscape—affects people’s sense of place and belonging, as well as their livelihoods. Wahid says it is not

“Climate change has been described as the biggest global health threat of this century— there is no doubt it will impact every aspect of health.”

—Shabab Wahid

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uncommon to see examples of “climate emotions”—or negative feelings associated with changes wrought by the rise in global temperature, along with ever-increasing and intensifying natural disasters.

He notes that seeing one’s way of life and sacred places suddenly transforming in negative ways can provoke an outpouring of ecological grief. This is true even if someone is not physically in the same place and is only seeing images of glaciers that have receded, or a river that is now dried out.

It’s all part of “ecological grief,” according to Wahid.

“Maybe we don’t hear the birds in the spring anymore.

The monarch butterflies are perhaps not as bountiful as they used to be. All of these things represent a deep sense of loss,” Wahid says.

Men’s health and well-being Equity in health and well-being is also a central focus for Griffith’s research. Through Georgetown’s Racial Justice Institute, which he co-leads, Griffith established the Center for Men’s Health Equity to address health inequities. The goal is to comprehensively study the cultural and social factors that shape men’s health and well-being—such as African American and Latino men in DC, Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Miami, and Los Angeles—by collaborating with churches, social media influencers, and other community partners. Currently, Griffith’s center is piloting a tailored app that addresses men’s individual barriers to making healthy lifestyle changes, and shares motivational messages.

These endeavors take aim at men’s aspirations for a better quality of life overall—such as having more energy or more availability to be with their loved ones—rather than encouraging them to get healthy for health’s sake.

Despite a common assumption that men don’t need this type of outreach, Griffith says that, in fact, men tend to become more socially isolated as they age.

“So we lose the time and energy to really connect, to share and express both happiness and sadness and a whole range of other emotions,” he says. “Often, as the stereotype goes, the reason that men don’t ask for help or advice or even directions, is that they’re thinking they are alone in what they are experiencing and that they are the only ones struggling with their kids, jobs, partner, etc.”

Once in small group settings, the men Griffith works with begin to open to the idea that they are all struggling with similar issues and that they can learn from one another.

Griffith and his colleagues are working to translate their learning into stronger national policies to foster men’s well-being. For example, they are currently assessing what a national men’s health policy would look like and how that could incorporate well-being. Earlier this year, Griffith became the chair of Global Action on Men’s Health—a global organization whose mission is to make the case for

Contributing to a culture of belonging among students All three Georgetown health and health sciences schools and its biomedical graduate education programs are focused on cura personalis with programs that prioritize respect, inclusion, and belonging.

Since 2016, Melicia Escobar and Christina X. Marea, professors in the Nurse-Midwifery and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner programs, have been working with their School of Nursing colleagues to identify opportunities to advance the school’s values of social justice and health equity within the various programs’ curricula.

Derek Griffith, Ph.D., provides health checks that are a vital part of the Mighty Men program, a faith-based weight-loss intervention program to reduce cancer disparities in African American men aged 35–74.

national and global policies that create and promote conditions “... where all men and boys have the opportunity to achieve the best possible health and well-being wherever they live and whatever their backgrounds.”

Photo: Lisa Helfert

A sense of belonging A core facet of well-being is that of belonging— feelings of exclusion, alienation, marginalization, inequity, or discrimination can directly undermine a person’s well-being. With this in mind, the School of Health is taking concrete steps to strengthen community and belonging among students, faculty, and staff.

In October, the school launched a year of programming, supported by Georgetown’s Learning, Equity, Access, and Pedagogy Initiative, that is focused on making the learning experience more inclusive for all students.

“In order to build a future where a sense of wellbeing is essential to health, we have to start with ourselves,” says Jessica Kritz, assistant professor in the global health department at the School of Health, who leads the year-long initiative and holds the position of Champion of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Initiatives at the school.

“We found that while our students could really easily master most clinical hard skills, what they struggled with were the patient-centered skills in the face of difference, be it race, ethnicity, weight, and/or any other personally held biases,” explains Escobar. “So my colleagues and I aimed to design a curriculum wherein structural competency and an understanding of intersectionality-informed, patient-centered care is no longer considered a soft skill, but rather a core competency for all learners.”

The curriculum revision and realignment is supported by the RADIANCE (respect, advocacy, diversity, inclusion, anti-racism, collaboration, and equity) grant program, developed by the Office of Faculty and Academic Affairs at Georgetown University Medical Center.

“This is an exciting time for our faculty,” explains School of Nursing Dean Roberta Waite. “We are developing inclusive pedagogy competencies and examining our courses, classroom activities, curricula, and assessments to factor in diversity and inclusivity in ways that will engage all students in learning that is meaningful, relevant, and accessible.”

At the School of Medicine, the Racial Justice Committee for Change (RJCC) is co-led by faculty, staff, and students. Formed in 2020, the group recently recommended longitudinal curricular threads focused on health equity and antiracism. Faculty development ideas included a curriculum bias checklist tool to ensure that classes promote inclusivity.

The School of Medicine’s Committee on Medical Education also recently voted for a continuation of pass/fail clerkship grading for the next two academic years. The decision is part of an ongoing effort to foster an equitable learning environment, including assessments that are fair for all students.

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Charles Yinusa helps a Mighty Men participant reach his weight-loss goals by focusing on mind, body, and spirit. Faith and friendships keep them motivated.

“Often, as the stereotype goes, the reason that men don’t ask for help or advice or even directions, is that they’re thinking they are alone in what they are experiencing ...”

Photos: Lisa Helfert

—Derek Griffith

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Serving as personal trainers for Mighty Men, a program of the Center for Men’s Health Equity (CMHE), are (left to right): Charles Yinusa, CMHE Project Coordinator Erika Wichmann, Reno Gourdine, Britt Daniels (C’18), CMHE Director Derek Griffith, and CMHE Community Outreach Specialist Tristan Porter.

The support empowers and funds student, staff, and faculty cohorts to design and implement activities that they envision will build a sense of belonging within and across cohorts. For example, as part of this initiative a group of students is working with a mentor—Georgetown alumnus Timothy Casey (C’07), who runs a communications firm in Los Angeles— to develop multimedia content that represents their identity and voice.

These types of initiatives are particularly important due to the school’s high number of students who come from low-income and immigrant backgrounds.

“We have the ability and the responsibility to reach into populations that our students represent—to tap into and uplift their cultural competence and unique capacities—and to incorporate that diversity into our own teaching and learning,” Kritz says.

School administration is also conducting audits of course syllabi to ensure coursework reflects the school’s commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and antiracism, according to King. In addition, the school will monitor end-of-course evaluations to assess students’ sense of belonging at the school.

“When students, staff, or faculty don’t have a sense of belonging, they’re not able to be their authentic selves and do their best work,” King says. “We must foster an academic environment where, undoubtedly,

every person knows that their unique identity and lived experience is critical for a world-class education.

It is incumbent on us to deliver on that promise.”

The concept of well-being underpins Georgetown’s foundational credo of cura personalis, or care of the whole person. It’s not just a person’s diabetes or depression that matters, but also their own overall sense of how they are navigating through this world.

It also feeds into Georgetown’s value of “people for others”—the idea of prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable. A core part of this means placing the individual we are trying to help at the center, Wahid says.

“Instead of saying ‘we know what’s good for you,’ it entails actually asking them and then using that as a way to guide how we shape policy, how we deliver health care, and how we approach and interact with communities.”

For King, this all ties back to the School of Health’s approach to solving the world’s most daunting health challenges.

“As educators and learners in this space, our mission is grounded by a sense of concern for the world, and recognition that a well-lived, fulfilled life goes beyond physical health,” King says. “Innovation is needed to support systems, processes, and practices that take us closer to the North Star. This is the work we are called to do.” n

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S TUDENT POINT OF VIEW

Focusing on sustainable health solutions in rural India

By Heather Wilpone-Welborn

Co-Presidents Shreya Arora (H’24, seated second from left) and Sanchi Gupta (C’24, seated far right), and Co-VP of Finance Sresth Viswanathan (C’24, seated far left) sitting with participant women from Project RISHI’s Lucky Shakti Leaf anemia elimination project in Amritpura village (Beawar, Rajasthan). They are also accompanied by their GSVS partner Anita Singh (far right, standing).

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disadvantages,” says Gupta, an economics and mathematics major who is co-president along with Arora. “When I came to Georgetown I was looking for an outlet to continue to work on issues relevant for women and children in India, so when I found RISHI, I was all in.”

Connecting shared culture with a cause

RISHI receives considerable support from Georgetown’s Social Innovation and Public Service Fund (SIPS), which allocates approximately $60,000 in annual award money to student-led projects that further the Jesuit value of service to others.

RISHI used the SIPS funds to collaborate on projects with Gramin Avam Samajik Vikas Sanstha (GSVS), an NGO based in Rajasthan. Members of the executive committee visited the region with SIPS funds in May. “During the trip, we made time to not only connect with GSVS about our ongoing projects, but we also had the opportunity to think through future projects,” says Arora.

Photos: Courtesy of RISHI

Through their student-run organization, Project RISHI (Rural India Social and Health Improvement), Georgetown undergraduate students including those from the School of Health and the College of Arts & Sciences are partnering with local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to address population health problems such as anemia and malnutrition through education and the use of sustainable health products.

“We work directly with people in villages to identify problems and create effective and sustainable solutions,” says global health major Shreya Arora (H’24), who co-founded the organization at Georgetown in Fall 2020.

Arora and Sanchi Gupta (C’24) say several RISHI members share South Asian heritage, and they wanted to find a way to both connect with their culture and pursue public health projects.

“I went to high school in southern India, where I worked with an orphanage for girls with physical and mental

One possible future project RISHI explored joining is a GSVS goat-rearing initiative in the Piplaz and Fatehgarh villages aimed at providing female migrant workers a sustainable vocational alternative to working in the hazardous mineral grinding industry, the dominant employer in the area.

“There are very limited opportunities for employment in the region,” explains Gupta. “Rearing goats provides these women with an alternative income. After an initial investment in the goats, the migrant women are able to milk them and sell their meat in markets.”

Arora, Gupta, and Sresth Viswanathan (C’24), a RISHI co-VP of finance, also met with local women in the villages near Rajasthan to hear firsthand about the success of their ongoing projects involving women’s menstrual health and the prevalence of anemia in the region.

Finding the sustainable solution

For their inaugural project, RISHI partnered with EcoFemme, a women-led nonprofit based in Tamil Nadu, to distribute reusable cloth pads and host educational sessions for women about their menstrual cycle.

“There’s really a stigma and a silence around menstruation in rural India, and we’re working to create a safe space for women to have these important health conversations and feel

“When I came to Georgetown I was looking for an outlet to continue to work on issues relevant for women and children in India, so when I found RISHI, I was all in.”—Sanchi Gupta (C’24)

Arora, Gupta, and Viswanathan serving lunch to children at a GSVS-run daycare center for children of migrant families

Viswanathan offering water to Hindu Lord Brahma at the famous Brahma Temple in Pushkar

empowered to make choices about their menstruation,” says Arora. “We’ve worked with over 150 women so far and distributed over 450 reusable pads.”

The reusable cloth pads last for several years and fulfill RISHI’s goal of finding sustainable, lasting health solutions.

“The pads can also be folded in a way where when they are hung out to dry, it does not look like a menstrual pad, so women are less ashamed to use the product in an area where it’s still taboo to talk about menstruation,” Gupta says.

Lucky Shakti Leaf and future plans

Last year, RISHI partnered with Lucky Iron Fish, a Canadian social enterprise, on another project to help improve low iron levels in women in rural Rajasthan through a unique cooking tool.

“The population near Rajasthan doesn’t have access to a lot of leafy greens, and the diet tends to be very dry, so it is hard to get iron from food,” said Gupta.

“We saw how it impacts their lives. The women and their children who are anemic are really tired and prone to fainting,” Arora says.“We worked with Lucky Iron Fish to rebrand as Lucky Shakti Leaf for the Indian market. The fish is not as appealing to the large vegetarian population in India.”

Thirty anemic women were selected for an initial pilot program where they received their cooking leaf after a workshop demonstrating how the tool can be added to any acidified boiling liquid to infuse a meal with iron.

“The leaves will last for five years and are sustainable and healthy,” explains Gupta. “We heard from women directly on our trip that when using the leaf consistently, they fainted less, felt less dizzy, and had an increased appetite.”

For their next project, RISHI is looking to collaborate with GSVS on addressing child malnutrition in the area by providing nutrient dense packets to families.

“Being in the villages brought a sense of satisfaction for me in serving women from my culture,” says Gupta. “I am really proud of the work we are doing.” n

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In 2020, Jeanne Mandelblatt was awarded the American Society of Preventive Oncology Joseph F. Fraumeni Jr., Distinguished Achievement Award, and appointed as the Frank M. Ewing Foundation Endowed Chair, which recognizes and supports an outstanding leader and researcher at Georgetown Lombardi, in 2022.

Knitting together aging and cancer Jeanne Mandelblatt is good at bringing things together, whether it’s coalescing disparate data to better understand how screening impacts cancer outcomes or threads of colorful yarn for a new knitted blanket. While she was working in East Harlem health centers with multigenerational underrepresented populations, Mandelblatt, the founder and inaugural director of the Georgetown Lombardi Institute for Cancer and Aging Research, became interested in how the various social determinants of health she saw could affect both well-being and how people seek health care. She focused on cancer, aging, and disparities, “because those are intertwined in complex and interesting ways” and hadn’t yet become more widely studied.

“Aging is the leading cause of cancer,” says Mandelblatt, a geriatrician by training. “The majority of cancer patients are 60 to 65, or older. Three-quarters of cancer survivors are older.” As the population rapidly ages, the need for understanding aging is becoming increasingly urgent to our efforts to prevent, detect, and treat cancer in older persons.

“Being part of a university environment provides you with opportunities to collaborate with experts from a variety of disciplines,” says Mandelblatt.

“What’s really fun about being a scientist is that ability to contribute and make a difference,” she says. Her early research helped get Medicare benefits to cover early Pap smear screenings. She continues to study the impact of changes in risk, screening, and treatment on U.S. population

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cancer trends through the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network, known as CISNET, including use of the CISNET models to inform screening guidelines and determine factors contributing to racial group mortality gaps.

After being awarded a seven-year NCI Outstanding Investigator Grant in 2015 for research on the intersections of aging, cancer, and health, she received a new grant this year: $600,000 annually for another seven years.

Mandelblatt’s latest research uses animal and human studies to discover pathways whereby adverse social determinants accelerate cellular aging and risk of poor cancer outcomes. She is also seeking to identify impacted specific cellular pathways that might be leveraged to reverse or stop more aging using behavioral or pharmaceutical interventions.

While she enjoys the quantitative aspect of research, she hasn’t lost her passion for the qualitative: working with patients. “I went into medicine because I really love working on the frontlines with people. And I want to make sure my research is helping real people with real problems.”

Outside of the laboratory, Mandelblatt has a passion for mentoring—and knitting. Knitting has been found to improve concentration, so she will often work on a scarf, blanket, or other yarn project during meetings. She founded a charity called Knit One, Cure One; proceeds of the sale of their wearable art goes to fighting cancer. The second charity she founded, Walking Warriors, also raises funds for the cancer community. n

Photo: Phil Humnicky

By Gabrielle Barone

ON CAMPUS

Pavilion now serving the community

By Gabrielle Barone

The Verstandig Pavilion at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital opened in late 2023 to meet the health care needs of the community, and provide School of Medicine and School of Nursing students with the opportunity to learn in an advanced and sophisticated health care environment.

The 477,000 square-foot building has been under construction since 2019. It stretches between the Leavey Center and St. Mary’s Hall, ending at Reservoir Road. Notable features include a new emergency department, 31 operating rooms, 156 private patient rooms, and a rooftop helipad. Most parking is now underground, allowing for more green space and pedestrian walkways for the entire Georgetown community to enjoy.

The pavilion is named after entrepreneur, venture capital investor, and philanthropist Grant Verstandig and the Verstandig Family Foundation, who made a historic $50 million gift to the project, one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever made to health care in the Washington, DC, region. n

New psychiatric mental health certificate program for nursing practitioners

Photo: Phil Humnicky

By Gabrielle Barone

In Fall 2025, the School of Nursing is planning a four semester post-graduate curriculum that will allow experienced nurse practitioners to pursue an additional certification as psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNPs).

Comprehensive mental health care services—including community trauma-informed approaches, harm reduction, and recovery support—are in more demand nationwide as people deal with issues ranging from acute crises to chronic illnesses to substance use disorders.

Karan Kverno, director of the PMHNP program, points out that the World Health Organization’s definition of health includes “physical, mental, and social well-being.”

“You can’t really pull them apart,” says Kverno. “They’re an overlapping triangle; they all influence each other.”

The vision for the program is to support the development of competent PMHNPs that will provide patient-focused and equitable mental health care. The vision also includes

preparing graduates to support patients, families, and communities in addressing social and structural perpetuating risk factors, and connecting them with community resources that help sustain recovery and support resilience.

To achieve the program vision, the School of Nursing faculty have partnered with their interprofessional MedStar Health clinical and academic colleagues in Washington, DC and Maryland to develop an effective and sustainable model of clinical PMHNP education.

Kverno notes that two exceptional advanced practice psychiatric nursing leaders are instrumental to realizing this vision: Dean Roberta Waite and Edilma Yearwood, senior advisor for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Antiracism.

“I am grateful to all of the School of Nursing faculty and mental health care colleagues who are collaborating to build this exciting new program,” Kverno says. n

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Celebrating 50 years of midwifery education with a call to action

By Karen Teber, Lauren M. Poteat, and Heather Wilpone-Welborn

The 50th anniversary celebration featured remarks by School of Nursing Dean Roberta Waite, EdD, PMHCNS, RN, MSN, ANEF, FAAN (left) and a keynote address by Ebony Marcelle, DNP, CNM, MS, FACNM (NHS’05) (right).

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Photos: Rafael Suanes

reproductive health rights, midwifery has had a presence.”

The School of Nursing-Midwifery (NM)/Women’s Health Her organization is dedicated to providing care for the Nurse Practitioner (WHNP) program celebrated 50 years of uninsured and underinsured. “At Community of Hope, we midwifery education with a day-long symposium and celebraare very mission-driven to support families,” said Marcelle. tion last October.

“We are listening to them telling us what they need and Inspired by Georgetown’s Jesuit tradition of cura personmeeting them where they are at, while not being judgmental.” alis, or “care of the whole person,” School of Nursing Dean Georgetown’s midwifery program began in 1973, one of 10 Roberta Waite announced the creation of a NM/WHNP & midwifery programs in the country and the first of its kind WHNP Student Emergency Fund.

“Our students are a priority,” said Waite at the symposium. in the District.

What started as a nine-month, in-person certificate pro“We believe that every student should not merely graduate but thrive during their program. This new fund will help our gram has evolved into three online programs for the study students who are faced with an unanticipated financial crisis.” of midwifery: a 27-month Master of Science degree in NM/ WHNP, a 33-month Doctor of Nursing Practice in NM/ The event featured a keynote address by Ebony Marcelle WHNP, and a postgraduate NM certificate.

(NHS’05), director of midwifery at Community of Hope, a The on-campus objective clinical intensives, online coursefamily health and birth center in Washington, DC. The work, and clinical placement make the program stand out, NM/WHNP and WHNP programs at Georgetown first according to midwife and Professor Emerita Cindy Farley. asked Marcelle to teach a course on racism in health care “Over the next 50 years, I hope midwifery becomes an in 2013, a course she still teaches to student midwives and established norm,” says Farley. “Midwives only do 12 percent WHNPs a decade later. of births in the United States, but they help promote positive “For centuries midwifery has existed to support marginhealth outcomes without unnecessary intervention, while alized communities,” said Marcelle (NHS’05) during her also supporting the health of the family.” n remarks. “Whether it be working in under-resourced communities, advocating for better regulations, or fighting for

ON CAMPUS

Accelerated programs offer unique opportunity for students

Photos: Georgetown University

By Lauren M. Poteat

Georgetown’s new accelerated Master of Science programs offer a streamlined pathway to a master’s degree for undergraduates pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Human Science.

During the Fall 2023 semester, the accelerated programs officially launched their application for juniorlevel undergraduates, in preparation for their senior year of study.

Jason Tilan, associate professor in the Department of Human Science (HSCI) and director of Accelerated Biomedical Graduate Education (BGE) pathways within HSCI, says Caleb McKinney, Ph.D., MPS, and Jason Tilan, Ph.D. (G’02,’09), co-designed an accelerated program for that these pathways allow students to undergraduates to challenge students and set them up for success after graduation. Students work with fulfill the requirements for an M.S. both School of Health academic deans and BGE faculty directors. degree within as little as one semester following completion of their undercollaboration between BGE and the Department of Human graduate studies, or a four plus one semester program Science in the School of Health. of study for a B.S. and M.S. During senior year, students are enrolled in the first year “The field of human science is a pretty broad spectrum, of the M.S. program and take two high-level courses that spanning fundamental biology to population health,” Tilan satisfy both the B.S. and M.S. requirement. Students also says. “Our undergraduates enter college with these wideselect two courses that only apply toward the M.S. degree. ranging interests in science, but not necessarily a specific After completing the B.S., students complete remaining career path. This program allows students to connect and requirements for the M.S. degree. strengthen ties between undergraduate and graduate bioMcKinney says that one exemplary component of the medical and health sciences.” program is that it allows students with limited resources the This particular accelerated program—co-designed by Tilan ability to complete their master’s degree in a shorter amount and Caleb McKinney, associate professor in the Department of time. It also includes extensive academic advising. of Rehabilitation Medicine, associate dean of Graduate and “The goal is to ensure that students are ready and eligible Postdoctoral Training & Development for Biomedical Gradu- to apply to the program,” McKinney says. “They may be ate Education (BGE), and assistant vice president of Master’s advised by both an academic dean at the School of Health Program Administration & Development for GUMC—is a and BGE faculty directors.”

“Being able to provide students with this opportunity is important. With such a variety of different career outcomes, “This program allows students to it becomes necessary to help them differentiate,” explains connect and strengthen ties between McKinney. “This program extends far beyond undergraduate coursework. Many of our undergraduates are pre-med undergraduate and graduate medical and programs such as this help continue Georgetown’s high health sciences.” —Jason Tilan placement rates in many medical schools.” n

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Dual M.D. degrees offer preparation, practical skills The dual M.D/MBA is intended for students interested Graduating medical school means earning an M.D., but in health care management. Students are enrolled fully in there are also options to earn concurrent degrees with School of Medicine classes for the first three years, then Georgetown’s dual degree program. Medical students can switch to the McDonough School of Business for year earn a dual degree with the following university programs: four. In the final year of the program, students go to the master’s in business administration (MBA), liberal arts McDonough School of Business to complete the elective degree in Ethics and Professionalism (MALS), or an courses and the MBA program’s signature Global Business advanced philosophy degree (master’s or doctorate). There Experience, a unique opportunity to travel abroad and consult are also dual programs with the Biomedical Graduate with executives from multinational organizations.

Education program.

“Georgetown McDonough trains its students to have an Some programs, like the popular M.D./MBA, can be applied for concurrently, while others, like the M.D./MALS, analytical and problem-solving mindset, which coupled with can be completed separately. Some degrees require the GRE, the leadership and teamwork training are incredibly helpful in bringing solutions to the table in an ever-changing healthbut others, like the M.D./Ph.D., do not, unless concentratcare industry,” shares Mark Matza (M’14, MBA’14). n ing in the bioethics track. Notably, accepted M.D./Ph.D. students receive a full tuition scholarship and stipend for the duration of their studies.

The dual M.D./M.S. also offers further degree specification options: Biohazard Threat Agents & Emerging Infectious Diseases, Physiology and Biophysics, and Systems Medicine.

Todd Waldman, who has directed the M.D./Ph.D. program since 2010, estimates the program has graduated around 100 trainees since it began in 1989.

There are advantages to pairing a medical degree with another program, Waldman says, in particular if students are looking to prepare for a career in biomedical research.

“While an M.D./Ph.D. is not required for this kind of career, it does give you an impressive and quite useful depth of training both as a physician and a scientist,” Waldman says. “This can be really helpful when designing studies and experiments, and is also practically useful in terms of getting jobs and Dual degree programs help School of Medicine students prepare for different health-related careers. research funding.”

These unique partnerships set a Georgetown University education apart.

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Photo: Phil Humnicky

By Gabrielle Barone

ON CAMPUS

Therapeutic music lifts mood, sonic environment at Lombardi

Photos: Courtesy of Karen Ashbrook

By Gabrielle Barone

Most performance musicians don’t want their audience to fall asleep. However, for therapeutic musicians, that’s a goal—if a patient is able to fall asleep, that means they’re relaxed. “It’s sort of the polar opposite of performing for a crowd,” says Certified Music Practitioner Karen Ashbrook, one of the artists in residence at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. “If I’m really doing my job, I’m wallpaper.”

Certified therapeutic musicians like Ashbrook are specially trained for the environment through a program recognized by the National Standards Board of Therapeutic Musicians, and know how to monitor vital signs like blood pressure and heart rate to tell if their efforts are helping.

Georgetown Lombardi’s musical component began with the introduction of the Arts and Humanities department, and they hope to double musician spots in the next year from five to 10.

One musician is also doing her certification practicum onsite. The musicians, all independent paid contractors, play in common areas and one-onone for patients, anywhere from patient rooms to busy spots like the emergency department, dialysis suite, and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Importantly, there is a difference between music therapists and therapeutic musicians. Music therapists are trained to help rehabilitation using music. Therapeutic musicians are trained to create a better sonic environment, and, according to Julia Langley, assistant professor at the School of Medicine and faculty director of the Arts and Humanities program, serve patients where they are at that moment. They can be conduits for expressing difficult emotions as well as joy and hope.

“We see patients and staff as two sides of the same coin,” Langley says. “If the patients feel better, it’s easier for the staff. If the staff feels better, it’s better for the patients.”

Georgetown Lombardi incorporates music into its foundation, from a 2021 National Arts Endowment grant to study effects of recorded music, to the annual Day of Dance, symposiums,

“If the patients feel better, it’s easier for the staff.

If the staff feels better, it’s better for the patients.”

—Julia Langley

Karen Ashbrook has over 40 years of experience playing the dulcimer around the world.

Her therapeutic music provides comfort to both patients and staff members.

and even the use of remote technology to safely provide music for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Langley believes the program offers something special: the chance for patients to have control in an environment where they’re vulnerable in other regards. “[Unlike with medical staff] the musicians aren’t coming to take your blood or your temperature,” she says. “They just bring themselves to be present and attentive.” n

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Pipeline programs continue to set Georgetown apart

By Lauren M. Poteat

Another pipeline program for students from underrepresented groups, the Academy for Research, Clinical and Health Equity Scholarship (ARCHES), helps promising undergraduates build research and clinical skills over the summer. Many participants are first-generation college students.

“I think the biggest opportunity that I gained from ARCHES was professional opportunities that I otherwise would not have had anywhere else and a group of faculty who really treat you like family, want you to succeed, and give so much guidance,” says Rimsha Rana (M’24). “They stayed in touch with us even after we finished the program. It’s very individualized attention. It was truly a life-changing program.”

In addition to ARCHES, the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center has a partnership with the University of the District of Columbia so that students can earn a master’s in biology with a choice of focus: cancer biology; cancer prevention and control; or infectious diseases and general study.

The partnership’s mission is to build a more diverse cancer research workforce.

Georgetown’s pipeline programs aren’t only for undergraduates and recent college graduates. The Gateway Exploration Program (GEP) is one of several summer programs for high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Local students from groups underrepresented in medicine are given the opportunity to take summer internships in various medical departments, while attending professional development workshops, lectures, and presentations led by medical school faculty.

During the six-week internship, students assist with health care administration, develop research and writing skills, network with mentors, and shadow Georgetown physicians. The internship concludes with capstone projects focused on community health. n This year's cohort of Gateway Exploration Scholars, high school students from Washington, DC, who completed a six-week internship

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Photo: Georgetown University

Though the Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision ended affirmative action in college admissions, Georgetown has long been working to support students from marginalized communities who are interested in learning more about medicine, nursing, health, and research.

Founded in 1977, the Georgetown Experimental Medical Studies (GEMS) program—a one-year, non-degree, post-baccalaureate program for students interested in medical careers—provides academic enrichment and customized advising to students from disadvantaged circumstances and underrepresented groups. The program is focused on building mastery in pre-med academics and enhancing confidence.

“I received the right exposure and learned to become an active, lifelong learner. I also learned to serve,” shares Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Antoine (M’98), a proud GEMS graduate. “I think the whole education process at Georgetown prepares students for service to humanity, and challenges them to keep learning so they can better serve their patients and communities.”

‘Thinking outside the box’ with integrative medicine

By Lauren M. Poteat

well as those who are older, and those who are looking for other non-pharmacologic methods to manage chronic pain.

Georgetown does a really good job of thinking outside of the box and has many specific programs focused on integrative medicine. I think this is what makes Georgetown stand out from other universities in the U.S.” Through the 11-month program, students take not only science courses but also examine chronic disease prevention and well-being through changed behaviors as well as holistic approaches that are supported by evidence of efficacy and effectiveness—herbs, vitamins and supplements, meditation, diet/nutrition, exercise, acupuncture, and massage therapy—that selectively incorporate elements of complementary “Georgetown does a really good job of thinking outside of the and integrative medicine into allopathic box and has many specific programs focused on integrative treatment plans.

Taking care of patients starts with medicine. I think this is what makes Georgetown stand out medical students learning self-care, from other universities in the U.S.” explains program director Hakima —Lady Nwadike (G’18) Amri, professor of biochemistry and physiology, co-founder of the Integrative Medicine Initiative, and head of the division of whole person health and wellness at George“I didn’t really know about integrative medicine as an edutown University. cational field before I applied,” says Nwadike, now oncology “There is always great research going on at Georgetown. program coordinator at Georgetown University’s Lombardi We just finished a study on the use of transcendental medComprehensive Cancer Center. “But once I started learning itation to reduce stress, anxiety, and burnout in medical about the positive impact it can have, when practiced corstudents,” says Amri. “I am seeing this increase in interest in rectly, on a person’s health care, I knew that I wanted to be instrumental in educating people about their options to com- integrative medicine from our young generation. I think they have more awareness about their health, want to have more plement their biomedical treatment plan. options in their toolkit, and try different modalities to pro“It became a calling that was important for me: to make mote health and wellness.” n sure that these different health options were getting across to people who looked like me—young, Black women—as

Illustration: iStock

As one of the only institutions to offer a Master of Science (M.S.) in integrative medicine and health sciences, Georgetown University continues to be at the forefront of holistic medicine with a program that prepares students for careers in health care and research through advanced education in biomedicine and progressive medical practices.

What began in 2003 as a program centered on bridging the study of evidence-based holistic approaches to health and biomedical sciences still remains the only one of its kind in the United States. Lady Nwadike (G’18) says that uniqueness compelled her to apply to Georgetown.

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ALUMNI CONNE CTIONS

Helping people at their most vulnerable As the only Black woman in her doctor of nursing practice (DNP) cohort at Georgetown University, Danielle McCamey (G’11, G’17) often struggled with feelings of insecurity, lack of belonging, and anxiety. Wanting to connect with other DNPs of color, she created a Facebook group as a safe place where people in similar circumstances shared stories, exchanged ideas, found mentors, and networked.

The group grew dramatically, evolving into DNPs of Color (DOC), a nonprofit organization that became a 501(c)(3) in 2018 and officially launched in 2020. Its mission is to increase diversity in doctoral studies, clinical practice, and leadership for nurses. DOC provides networking, membership, and advocacy opportunities.

“Doctoral degrees aren’t as accessible to communities of color—you don’t find many folks with doctorates that identify as a person of color,” says McCamey, the assistant dean for strategic partnerships and an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. “When you’re in these academic spaces alone, the dominant voices and perspectives can feel exclusive, even when it’s not intentional. DOC helps bolster the confidence and skills of its members, helping them realize the value they bring to the health care community.”

In addition to her academic career, McCamey practices in surgical critical care at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. A fellow in the American College of Chest Physicians, she serves as chair of the organization’s Palliative and End of Life Care Network because she’s passionate about quality of life as defined by patients and their families.

McCamey was inspired to pursue a nursing career by her mother, who worked as a home health care nurse. As a young child, McCamey often accompanied her mother on assignments, bringing along her own child-sized medical bag and plastic stethoscope.

“I really admired my mother’s ability to create a comforting presence and a comforting experience for her patients right in their own homes,” says McCamey. “The meticulous care that she provided was so fascinating for me, just seeing how nurses are part of people’s lives during their most vulnerable times. I wanted to contribute to that intimate fabric, to be a part of the evolution of care within patients’ lives— whether ushering them to health or comforting them during their transition to death. Being a part of those key moments in a person’s life and helping them and their families adjust, adapt, or overcome is definitely a special place that nursing holds, and no other profession has the honor to be part of.” n

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Danielle McCamey, DNP, CRNP, ACNP-BC, FCCP (G’11, G’17), created a nonprofit called DNPs of Color. At the third annual conference in October 2023, participants gathered at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, to recognize game changers and trailblazers in nursing.

Photos: Courtesy of Danielle McCamey

By Karen Doss Bowman

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

Building diversity in the sciences

Photo: Yara Zayas

By Karen Doss Bowman

For Andres Filgueira (G’23), the emphasis Georgetown Looking to the future, Filgueira plans to start a nonprofit Biomedical Graduate Education (BGE) places on inclusivity organization to empower teenagers from underrepresented and innovation has been just as vital as the program’s populations by guiding them through college preparation. commitment to academic excellence. As part of a diverse He also hopes to encourage them to pursue science, technolbioinformatics cohort, Filgueira has made meaningful ogy, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. connections with promising young scientists from a wide “Empowering underserved groups and promoting diverrange of backgrounds. sity in the STEM fields is crucial to me,” says Filgueira. “I “At Georgetown, I’ve found an environment that brought believe everyone has the potential for brilliance, but not all the best out of me, both in and out of the classroom,” says of us receive the same opportunities to realize our abiliFilgueira, a 2022 Hoyas for Science Scholarship recipient ties. Despite diversity becoming a politically charged term from Florida, who lived part of his childhood in his mother’s recently, it’s indispensable in STEM, fueling innovation hometown of Caracas, Venezuela. “Georgetown pushed me and fostering perspectives that are essential for pushing the out of my comfort zone to embrace new opportunities.” boundaries of what we know and can achieve.” n Filgueira, who holds bachelor’s degrees in history and biology, graduated in December 2023 with a master’s degree in bioinformatics. This emerging field combines principles of computer programming and biology to shed light on genetic sequences and protein functions in certain diseases, such as cancer.

Having lost friends to substance abuse disorder, Filgueira came to Georgetown with an interest in exploring the relationship between genetics and drug addiction. As an intern at Moffitt Cancer Center (MCC) in Tampa, Florida, he’s had the opportunity to continue his focus in this area.

He’s part of an interdisciplinary team working to identify genes that indicate a higher susceptibility to opioid addiction in cancer patients.

“This research has significant implications for cancer research, as it uncovers the link between addiction, genetics, and cancer-related concerns,” explains Filgueira. “By identifying genetic markers and pathways, our goal is to deepen our understanding of the genetic and molecular factors underlying addiction. Hopefully, these findings will contribute to advancements in personalized medicine and targeted interFilgueira hopes to start a nonprofit organization that will encourage teenagers from underrepresented ventions, bridging the gap between populations to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. drug addiction and cancer research.”

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A LUMNI CONNE CTIONS

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Tools of the Trade Interview by Gabrielle Barone

Jane (Johnston) Balkam, Ph.D., APRN, CPNP, IBCLC (N’72, Parent’06, ’13) Owner, Babies ‘n Business, LLC; Lactation Consultant and Professor

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the workplace. After this meeting, she had the opportunity to work with a number of organizations, including the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee and the Office of U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) to promote legislation that eventually became the “Breaktime for Nursing Mothers” section of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Balkam completed her Ph.D. in 2006. After teaching courses at a few DC-area universities—including one year at Georgetown—she found her “academic home” at Notre Dame of Maryland University, where she has taught for the last 16 years, obtaining the rank of full professor with tenure.

1. Laptop computer. Balkam taught nursing informatics classes as the profession digitized, and now uses the computer in a number of ways, including virtual classes.

2. Lactation pump and baby model. She uses the baby model to teach breastfeeding technique and the pump to teach mothers about milk expression.

3. Nutrition textbook.

4. Mug / water bottle. n

Photos: Phil Humnicky / iStock

Georgetown alumna and parent Jane (Johnston) Balkam felt called to the nursing profession. “That interest in helping others was supported and buoyed by my experience at Georgetown,” Balkam says.

After graduating from Georgetown and beginning her career in general nursing, Balkam was given an opportunity to initiate the role of nurse epidemiologist for a large teaching hospital. She received a master’s degree and certification as a pediatric nurse practitioner in 1977, and practiced as a PNP for many years in a variety of settings.

“In the early days, we spent a lot of time explaining the role of the nurse practitioner to patients and other team members,” Balkam says. “However, we demonstrated the value of this role, and now there are multiple types of nurse practitioners who provide much of the primary care in this country.”

In 1991, Balkam's interest in breastfeeding issues led her to start her lactation consulting practice, Babies ‘n Business, focused on support for breastfeeding women in the workplace.

Inspired by personal experience, Balkam and a colleague met with staffers of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues about the need to support breastfeeding women in

BOOK CORNER

Surgeon’s memoirs offer an inside look

By Gabrielle Barone

Photo: Courtesy of Paul Ruggieri

Sometimes doctors find themselves in situations they didn’t learn about in medical school. For Paul Ruggieri (M’87), this included going to a patient’s apartment after surgery and taking the patients’ beloved dog to a boarding kennel while he recovered.

“You can’t make this stuff up,” Ruggieri says of the opening scene in his latest book, Confessions of a Surgeon: A Deeper Cut. “Things just happen. The situation compels you to do something you would’ve never thought you would do.”

Ruggieri calls his latest work a “pseudo-sequel” to his original Confessions of a Surgeon in 2012. Over the last 10–15 years, Ruggieri says, the landscape of medical practice and surgery has rapidly changed—from robotic surgeries to the business models—and it all affects patient care.

Though he didn’t have formal training, Ruggieri likes to write and first published multiple patient-centered informational books, ranging from The Surgery Handbook to Thyroid Disorders. “The memoirs are harder because you have to weave interesting stories together. You don’t want it to be boring.”

The Georgetown value of cura personalis means care for the whole person, and Ruggieri took that into his medical career after graduating.

“Our role doesn’t end when you operate on the patient,” Ruggieri says. “Sometimes you have to go beyond the hospital walls, beyond what your training taught you. And I think most surgeons do that. They don’t talk or boast about it; they just do what they have to do.”

He used one of his most memorable medical school experiences— eagerly going from classroom learning to facing the reality of physical exams with live patients—for the opening scene of his original Confessions.

“I chose Georgetown because they had you work with patients right away. They emphasized that your career would be about treating human beings.”

While Ruggieri encourages doctors and students to keep a journal, he didn’t have trouble recalling certain scenarios for his memoirs. He notes that while it is easy to move on from good circumstances, the bad results often linger.

“Nobody teaches you how to process a bad outcome,” Ruggieri says, “or how to explain a surgical complication to the family. There’s no way to teach that in training or medical school.”

Ruggeri says the largest response to his memoirs has actually come from medical students. “I think it’s a realistic look, very blunt at times,” he shares. “But I went into med­ icine because it’s what I wanted to do with my life. There was nothing else, and most people who become doctors say it’s the same for them. This is what’s in their soul.” n

“Our role doesn’t end when you operate on the patient. Sometimes you have to go beyond the hospital walls, beyond what your training taught you.”

—Paul Ruggieri (M’87)

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Reflections on Health with

Joseph Branda, M.D. (M’72), Radiologist

I got adopted into a great group of Georgetown friends in medical school and we’ve kept very tight over the years, especially after I broke my neck in a car accident near the end of my fourth year.

My classmates were so supportive and made sure I graduated, because I had three electives to go. The dean came to my hospital room to give me my diploma ahead of the graduation ceremony, so the joke is I graduated first in my class.

I was completely paralyzed at first but started getting sensations back and gradually, over 15 months, I became pretty independent but in a wheelchair. My right hand was shot but I had decent use of my left hand because before the accident I practiced tying surgical knots with my left hand when I was studying, using a string attached to my desk.

I had matched in cardiothoracic surgery, but as a quadriplegic I changed to radiology. There was some pushback, but Dr. Dieter Schellinger and Dr. Olcay Cigtay spoke up for me and I was accepted at Georgetown Hospital for radiology. Eventually I became chief resident.

In 1977 I set up a private radiology practice in Laurel, Maryland. The beginning was a nightmare to get the suite filled out—and I was a quarter million dollars in debt with all the equipment—but eventually we got it going pretty well.

I met my beloved wife Carol at the hospital in Laurel where I was moonlighting—she was the chief tech there.

We adopted two children and built a nice house that’s completely accessible. She died in 2015.

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I’ve lived through many changes in the history of radiology. The ultrasound was just getting started when I began.

Early CT scanners were extremely slow to create a whole image of the brain.

Then MRI came along.

Mammography began with regular industrial film, which took an awful lot of radiation, to eventually more sensitive film screen, then later laser film and 3D. Now we are seeing computeraided diagnosis.

I liked to talk to every patient in person, so they knew what was going on and felt comfortable. Some results took five days.

The economics of medicine are challenging, especially for smaller groups like ours, with so much depending on insurance company approvals. Some of our patients can barely afford food and then get slammed with hundreds or thousands of dollars in deductibles. We tried to make the tests as affordable as possible.

What I love about radiology is the variety of things you see and the broad scope of medical knowledge you need to interpret. I always liked machines and people so it worked out well for me.

My only regret is that my wife didn’t get to see her granddaughter Margaret or the wonderful adults our children Nicholas and Gabriela have become. n —Interview by Jane Varner Malhotra

Photos: Sam Levitan / Georgetown University / iStock

I grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey, and went to college at Seton Hall University. I continued on to Georgetown’s medical school, which felt like a friendly place with a sense of warmth, like home. When I left for medical school, my mom wrote out recipes for me. In an Italian family, the main room in the house is the kitchen.

Emeritus professor supports GUMC faculty research Cited as a “giant” in allergyimmunology by the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, Joseph A. Bellanti— emeritus professor of pediatrics and microbiology-immunology, founder and director of the International Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Immunology at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC), and author of a widely acclaimed textbook in immunology—celebrates 60 years of research and education with two gifts to Georgetown.

One gift will support GUMC’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology. The second will provide additional start-up funding to support the Cluster Hire initiative, a new faculty recruitment strategy in which clusters of faculty are recruited around a single health problem spanning from the laboratory to the clinic.

“I remain deeply grateful for Dr. Bellanti’s commitment to strengthening our work in microbiology and immunology at Georgetown,” says Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia. “I cannot thank him enough for his steadfast engagement and all he has done over the years to advance our academic mission, especially as a professor emeritus.”

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Photo: Heather Wilpone-Welborn

Students from the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and Master of Science Entry to Nursing Practice Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) programs administered flu vaccines at a walk-in clinic in the Leavey Center last fall. “The flu clinics are important,” shares School of Nursing instructor Susan Coleman. “After their shifts here the students feel empowered to have contributed to disease prevention in their community.”

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