Medicine on the Midway - Fall 2021

FA LL 2021

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

On and off the battlefield U FOR THANK YO VICE YOUR SER How military service has shaped the medical and scientific careers of alumni, faculty and trainees

Dean’s Letter

Dear Colleagues,

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he past year has been all about how we muster the resilience and inner strength to meet the most difficult challenges. When I look back on this extraordinary time, I am enormously proud of the way our community

has responded. From the heroic efforts of doctors, nurses and emergency

Many of the skills and qualities

personnel to care for those with COVID-19 to the unprecedented and rapid

developed in the military are like

development of sensitive, accurate tests and several lifesaving vaccines, medical

those taught in graduate and

professionals and scientists have made immeasurable contributions.

Behind the scenes, researchers at our university and elsewhere have created

medical school. These include how

a safe work environment in laboratories, while maintaining existing funded

to work effectively as part of a team,

research programs and robust teaching efforts in the face of lockdowns and

confidence, leadership and the

other measures to counteract the virus.

ability to make difficult decisions under pressure.

In approaching how to meet such challenges, we can all learn from our colleagues in the military. Thus, for the cover story we interviewed alumni, faculty and trainees who have served in the military about how that experience has shaped their careers and their ability to deal with adversity.

Many of the skills and qualities developed in the military are like those taught in graduate and medical school. These include how to work effectively as part of a team, confidence, leadership and the ability to make difficult decisions under pressure. The medical care we provide to our patients and the research conducted in our labs are better for the knowledge and training that our military veterans bring to the table. Their contributions are particularly notable in our trauma center, where Kenneth Wilson, MD, Trauma Center Medical Director and U.S. Army Reserve Colonel profiled on Page 19, has been instrumental in developing a partnership with the Army to bring military healthcare professionals to our Level 1 adult trauma center to train and practice. Dr. Wilson and the team in our Emergency Department have provided exemplary care to patients and their families during this challenging year, which has seen a substantial increase in violent crime on the South Side.

The pandemic and racial reckoning of the past months also provide an

Kenneth S. Polonsky, MD

opportunity for passionate leaders to accelerate positive change. This issue

The Richard T. Crane Distinguished Service Professor

includes a Q&A with our new Dean for Medical Education, Vineet Arora, MD,

Dean of the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs The University of Chicago

AM’03, who explains how she intends to capitalize on the disruption of the pandemic to further empower medical students and physicians to improve equity for patients in our healthcare systems. On Page 26, you can also read about cardiology fellow Shirlene Obuobi, MD’18, creator of comics that shine a light on racism and health disparities.

While the final lessons of this pandemic have yet to be written, I hope these and other stories in this issue inspire you to find meaning from this most difficult of years.

IN THIS ISSUE C OV E R S T O R Y

Inspired to serve Fall 2021 Volume 74, No. 2

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Michael McCartin, MD’18, jumped out of helicopters to rescue wounded soldiers in Afghanistan. April Sullivan Fitzgerald, MD’96, MEd, was deployed to the Pentagon after 9/11. Robert Porter, MD’60, provided medical care at an Air Force base during the Cold War. Alumni, faculty and trainees talk about how their military service shaped their lives and careers.

A publication of the University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences Division.

Medicine on the Midway is published for friends, alumni and faculty of the University of Chicago Medicine, Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine.

Email us at momedit@uchospitals.edu Write us at Editor, Medicine on the Midway The University of Chicago Medicine 950 E. 61st St., WSSC 322 Chicago, IL 60637

16 Shirlene Obuobi, MD’18, and Brian Callender, AB’97, AM’98, MD’04

The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and Biological Sciences Executive Leadership Kenneth S. Polonsky, MD, Richard T. Crane Distinguished Service Professor, Dean of the University of Chicago Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine, and Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs for the University of Chicago T. Conrad Gilliam, PhD, Marjorie I. and Bernard A. Mitchell Distinguished Service Professor, Dean for Basic Science, Biological Sciences Division

April Sullivan Fitzgerald, MD’96, MEd

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Thomas E. Jackiewicz, President of the University of Chicago Medical Center Vineet Arora, MD, AM’03, Dean for Medical Education, Pritzker School of Medicine Editorial Committee Chair Jeanne M. Farnan, AB’98, MD’02, MHPE Dana Lindsay, MD’92 Robert Mitchum, PhD’07 Coleman R. Seskind, AB’55, SB’56, MD’59, SM’59 (Lifetime Member) Abby Stayart, AB’97, PhD’12 Carol A. Westbrook, AB’72, PhD’77, MD’78 Student Representatives Shira Fishbach, LAB’13, AB’17 (Pritzker) Helen Wei (Pritzker) James Zhang (Pritzker) Jessica Morgan (BSD) Alexandra Smith (BSD) University of Chicago Medicine Marketing and Communications Anna Madrzyk, Editor Editorial Contributors Nancy Averett Emily Ayshford Jamie Bartosch Stephan Benzkofer Alison Caldwell, PhD Kate Dohner Photo Contributors Andrew Collings Rosalía CooperOrtega Jimmy Fishbein GradImages Reidar Hahn/ Fermilab Bart Harris Ashley Heher Robert Kozloff Jean Lachat Sandro Miller Jordan PorterWoodruff Illustration Contributor Selma Chab Design Wilkinson Design

Ashley Heher Ellen McGrew Angela Wells O’Connor Matt Reyer, PhD Matt Wood Anne Ryan Eileen Ryan Jason Smith University of Chicago Photographic Archives, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library Joel Wintermantle Nancy Wong

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35 Vineet Arora, MD, AM’03

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F E AT U R E S

Into the woods 7 The Warren Woods Ecological Field Station in southwestern Michigan provides a research home for scientists.

Alumni profile 14 A conversation with Pilar Ortega, MD’06, and Joseph Cooper, MD’06.

Emotional impact 26 Attention-grabbing comics shine a light on healthcare disparities and structural racism.

14 Pilar Ortega, MD’06, and Joey Cooper, MD’06

The ‘Colon Whisperer’ 28 David T. Rubin, MD’94, is a clinician, researcher, educator and tireless advocate for people with inflammatory bowel disease. But first, there was a knock on a legendary physician’s door.

D E PA R T M E N T S

Midway News Doriane Miller, MD’83, takes the helm at the UChicago MBSAA 2 Vineet Arora, MD, AM’03, Dean for Medical Education, on how the pandemic and social unrest are changing medical education 4 BSD News BSD Diversity Committee recognizes graduate students and postdocs 32 Why mouse brains have more synapses per neuron than primates do 35

Pritzker News White Coat ceremony 36 Medical students honored for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts 37 Your News 39 In Memoriam 40 Remembering immunologist Frank Fitch, MD’53, SM’57, PhD’60 41

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ALUMNI LEADERSHIP

Midway News

Building a stronger alumni community

BY ANGELA WELLS O’CONNOR PHOTO BY NANCY WONG

Doriane Miller, MD’83

Doriane C. Miller, MD’83, is the new President of the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association (UChicago MBSAA). She is a professor of medicine and inaugural director of the University of Chicago Medicine’s Center for Community Health and Vitality, and has provided care to underserved minority populations for more than 30 years. Miller also was recently named director of Health Equity Integration for the Institute for Translational Medicine. Her research focuses on the intersection of health disparities and race.

She has served on the Alumni Council for eight years.

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on the University side. We had been much more likely in the past to recognize people for their basic science achievements — the typical triple threat who’s an incredible bench researcher, clinician and educator. But how about people who have done work in the public sector, whether it be administration, advocacy, public health or global health? It’s important for medical students and BSD trainees to have role models who have done work in these areas.

What are some of the highlights of your work with the Alumni Council?

What calls you to serve and lead the Alumni Council?

I’ve been very pleased with being able to work on realigning the alumni awards process to make sure that it parallels the University’s Alumni Awards, with the expansion of many of the award categories to include both young and more seasoned professionals.

We also looked at the issue of accomplishments versus service, which is a distinction that’s made

I have always deeply appreciated the level of support that was given to me when I was a medical student at Pritzker. I had wonderful role models here, including Louis Cohen, SB’48, MD’53, Joseph Baron, SB’58, SM’62, MD’63, Lloyd Crump, MD, and James Bowman, MD, whose door was always open. Gomez Charleston, AB’71, MD’75, was also a wonderful clinical teacher and role model for

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

IMMUNOENGINEERING

me as a medical student. He ended up being a primary care physician for both of my parents, as well as one grandparent. Pritzker’s approach to education helped shape my career and how I approach clinical medicine and problemsolving with rigor and thoroughness. I wanted to give back in some way.

What are some of your leadership priorities?

Over the past few years, the UChicago MBSAA has broadened its membership by inviting medical students, graduate students and residents to serve on the Alumni Council. And I think that they bring in very fresh and needed perspectives. I would like to continue that work.

In addition to growing diversity of perspective, thought and opinion, we want to increase the diversity of content that’s communicated. This means sharing updates around the research that’s taking place across the BSD to make sure our alumni are exposed to what’s happening on the ground here.

Much of your clinical work is communitybased. How can the UChicago MBSAA build community?

We have an incredible professional staff led

by Jennifer Dettloff, Director of Alumni and Volunteer Engagement, UChicago Medicine and Biological Sciences Development, and we are always looking for ways to engage alumni.

This includes not only going deeper into the clinical research and teaching activities within the BSD and Pritzker, but also connecting across the University through professional affinity groups. For example, a book club was recently instituted for members of different alumni groups. The books are not technical publications, but lay publications, which makes it a fun activity. We look forward to being able to socialize in person again, but even with pandemic restrictions, we’ve still been able to meet with one another on a casual basis over Zoom calls, to learn about one another’s work and to catch up. This often involves personal discussions around children, family and other interests. It’s fostering the sense that once you are a graduate of the University of Chicago within the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine, it’s not the end, but it’s the real beginning of the formation of a community that can help to sustain you through lifelong learning opportunities. uchicagomedicine.org/midway

Center aims to develop new technologies to treat disease

BY EMILY AYSHFORD

T

he new Chicago Immunoengineering Innovation Center (CIIC) will focus on developing new technologies to treat diseases, including cancer, allergies, autoimmune disorders and coronavirus.

Based at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, the center will serve as a hub for engineers, immunologists, biologists and clinicians to collaborate and share resources toward research in immunoengineering. The center opened in February 2021.

Immunoengineering is a fast-growing field that uses engineering analysis and design approaches to understand the basic mechanisms of our immune system and develop technologies to treat complex conditions. Working in partnership with the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Argonne National Laboratory and the immunoengineering startup community of Chicago, the center will create an ecosystem that brings technologies from the lab to treatment.

The center’s co-directors are Jeffrey Hubbell, PhD, Eugene Bell Professor in Tissue Engineering, and Melody Swartz, PhD, William B. Ogden Professor in Molecular Engineering.

Faculty members span several departments and approach immunoengineering from a number of collaborative angles. In cancer immunotherapy, for example, researchers are working on multiple strategies to improve immune system stimulants that can amplify immune responses against cancer.

Researchers are also developing computational and experimental approaches to new vaccines and vaccine delivery methods. They are working to

PHOTO BY ANNE RYAN

The new Chicago Immunoengineering Innovation Center is housed in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

retrain the immune system to not attack itself, as in autoimmune disorders or in response to certain foods.

Scientists and engineers are also examining the microbiome’s role in allergies and autoimmune disorders, and are working to create diagnostic tests based on microbiotic biomarkers and to deliver treatments that can modify the microbiome. In addition, they are looking at the immune system as a whole, melding experimental and computational approaches to unravel new insights.

“The discoveries you make in cancer immunotherapy, for example, can be valuable in treating autoimmune diseases,” Swartz said. “This center will make those cross-lab connections even stronger.”

To pave the way for research and entrepreneurship, the center plans to provide bridge funding to help fill holes in the immunoengineering research pipeline as well as build new core facilities for researchers, including preclinical evaluation and single cell immunogenomics core facilities. In the future, they hope to also add a protein production facility.

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Midway News

M E D I C A L E D U C AT I O N

A conversation with Vineet Arora, MD, AM’03

BY EMILY AYSHFORD PHOTO BY NANCY WONG

“ If we cannot use this moment to catalyze and promote change to improve the health equity of our patients and diversify and improve the inclusivity of our learning environments, then that is the epic failure of our time.”

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Q&

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

Vineet Arora, MD, AM’03, Herbert T. Abelson Professor of Medicine, became the new Dean for Medical Education on July 1. She sat down recently to talk about her goals for the curriculum and how the global pandemic and social unrest are changing medical education.

You started as Dean for Medical Education 20 years to the day after completing your internal medicine residency at the University of Chicago. At the time, did you ever envision yourself in this role?

At the time, I was just happy to be finishing residency!

It was such an achievement. I headed to the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy to get a master’s in public policy and then did my chief resident year, and that’s when I became really interested in medical education. I was working on implementing new residency duty hours at the time.

When I became a faculty member in 2004, I got hired as an assistant dean, so I’ve been in the dean’s office ever since. My first role was thinking about curricular innovation, so in a way I’ve come full circle.

Throughout your career you’ve studied areas such as patient handoffs, physician burnout and creating diverse teams, but teaching and mentoring have remained important to you as well.

So much about being a scientist is about teaching — and we’re discovering that even more during this pandemic. New science comes out every day, and if you don’t have someone who is able to communicate it and teach it to the public, there’s an opportunity for distortion or an implementation gap.

When I teach, I am also interested in active learning. So much of medical education today relies on memorization, but medicine is often about accessing information and partnering with a team to get a care plan implemented. A lot of my research has been in the clinical environment, and that’s how I approach education. How do we improve learning at the point of care? How do we empower our students to become lifelong learners?

A

Mentoring has played a big role in your career.

Why is it so important?

I’ve studied mentoring, I’ve run mentoring programs, I’ve been mentored and I’m passionate about mentoring. I’ve seen the rewards, the direct results of good mentoring. In my career, I’m most proud of people I’ve mentored. It’s especially exciting to see the diversity of the people I’ve helped train become faculty members, including women and those

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who are underrepresented in medicine. Then they become mentors in their own right.

That said, mentoring is a two-way street. I get a lot of emails from students or residents when they are at transition points, asking what they should do next.

I tell them that I don’t have the answers, but I can be a sounding board for them. That can be uncomfortable initially. Oftentimes, people can expect you to give them direct orders to carry out, especially in a career like medicine. But my philosophy is to talk about their goals and priorities, and to make sure the investment is on both sides. Mentors can learn a lot of things from mentees.

What have you learned from students or your mentees over the past two decades?

I think many Pritzker alumni would find that the school today is very different than it was many years ago. There’s a huge focus on well-being, advising and work-life balance. I’m certainly not the best person to speak on work-life balance, but students have helped me learn the importance of it. Especially with the pandemic, there have been a lot of questions around separating yourself from work and getting some time to restore yourself. That’s part of a new culture that did not exist before that I do try to model as well.

“ I think many Pritzker alumni would find that the school today is very different than it was many years ago. There’s a huge focus on well-being, advising and worklife balance.”

Speaking of change: You are beginning this role amid a global pandemic and after a year of social unrest. How has that changed medical education?

Change is never easy. We’re hardwired not to change.

But the way you can accelerate change is through urgency, a burning platform, and the past year and a half has given us a burning platform. The pandemic has upended the way education is delivered in this country. It has changed dramatically the way in which we need to empower learners and physicians to lead in our healthcare systems and be advocates for their patients. And the death of so many Black men and women at the hands of state violence has really catapulted the underlying issue of structural racism and inequity into the forefront.

If we cannot use this moment to catalyze and promote change to improve the health equity of our patients and diversify and improve the inclusivity of our learning environments, then that is the epic failure of our time.

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“ Our students and residents do not come to us as blank slates. They have a diversity of experiences, and we want to leverage those experiences to help contribute to healthcare teams and to the overall societal mission of improving health in the community.”

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How do you hope to promote this kind of change?

How does graduate-level education fit into all this?

First, I’m on a listening tour to understand the needs across our continuum of medical education. One thing our team really wants to do is engage people in building a new vision for our medical school curriculum. We have launched an ideas incubator called Pritzker EVOLVES (Ensuring a Vision of Leading with our Values to Educate Students) where faculty, students, alumni and patients can submit ideas.

Readers can visit bit.ly/psmevolves to learn more.

At the resident and fellow level, our goal needs to be to ensure that we are equipping them to transition into practice, no matter what their career path. I’m a huge fan of our Community Champions program, led by Anita Blanchard, MD’90, which helps connect residents to the Urban Health Initiative and immerse them in our community. We want to sustain the innovations we are proud of, and also build upon them. And as someone who studies transitions, I also want to help support our learners at their transition points — whether it’s from student to resident, or resident to fellow or faculty. These can be very stressful experiences, and often that is where we see the greatest need and where we have a comparative advantage.

You’re looking for ideas, but you likely have a few initiatives that you’re ready to jump in on.

There are a few initiatives that we are focusing on right away. We are looking for more ways to support students who are first-generation and low-income.

We are going to improve the quality of learning space to promote more small-group learning interactions, especially as we emerge from the pandemic. We are looking at areas where we can harnass core resources, like simulation and technology, for students, residents and faculty education.

What about long-term change to the curriculum?

We need to skate where the puck is going. We need to train medical students for the environment of tomorrow. At Pritzker, we’re fortunate to have this strong sense of social justice and health equity, since we’re based on the South Side. The reason many people come here to train is to serve these communities and patients the best way that they can. We are also fortunate to have an excellent health system right here on campus, where we can immerse our learners in a training environment.

That said, we can do a better job integrating students earlier into our health system and into our community to get the training we need. I also want our students to take advantage of our world-class campus and connect with other departments to help them become leaders.

We’re also in an environment where technology is playing an increasingly important role, not just in telemedicine, but in big data and artificial intelligence. The way in which we deliver healthcare now incorporates the doctor, patient and computer — and not just through electronic health records.

The computer might actually be advising you on what to do. Students and residents need to know how to interact with that and how to assess if that information is correct.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

You mention the campus’s location on the South Side, and programs aimed at reflecting that diversity. How does that play into ensuring more doctors are located where they are needed, including in underserved areas of the city?

Our South Side Health Transformation Project (now the South Side Healthy Community Organization), which our hospital is a key leader for, is aimed at addressing health disparities affecting South Side communities through strategic investments. To really improve health outcomes on the South Side, we also need to consider how to address those healthcare workforce needs. We are going to be looking for ways to engage and integrate all learners and faculty so they can understand the need and help fill the gaps.

There is a lot of work ahead, but what excites you most?

A lot of what I want to do is empower people to lead from where they stand. The pandemic has really shown us how this is possible. Our medical students and residents helped with PPE, infection control and getting people vaccinated. Not only did they help society, they also improved their own engagement and satisfaction because they were living up to their scope of practice. Our students and residents do not come to us as blank slates. They have a diversity of experiences, and we want to leverage those experiences to help contribute to healthcare teams and to the overall societal mission of improving health in the community. Leadership does not require a position or a title. It requires a mindset of empowering those experiences to occur.

BY ALISON CALDWELL, PHD PHOTOS BY NANCY WONG

MORE THAN A PASSIVE HOUSE —

A RESEARCH HOME The Warren Woods Ecological Field Station, located near Three Oaks, Michigan, gained international acclaim for its innovative architecture when it was built.

Now it’s a space where scientists can conduct innovative research, sit quietly, think hard and connect creatively.

With the COVID-19 pandemic bringing their fieldwork in such far-flung locations as the Himalayas to a halt, researchers are finding new ways to use the space to further their scientific endeavors.

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Timothy Morton, PhD

“WHAT ARE THE FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF MICROBIOME ASSEMBLY?

THE

SETTING

If we can figure out how the microbiome is built in a plant, it’ll follow the same rules in other organisms.

That’s what we’re working on.”

Morton has maintained the grounds of the field station, working to slow invasive species and encourage native plant growth. Tall fences surround secure research fields.

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Timothy Morton, PhD, has cared for the Warren Woods Ecological Field Station since it was built in 2014. This includes not just managing research projects but plowing and planting fields between seasons, clearing and burning brush, mowing paths, and repairing fencing broken by hungry deer. Morton, who left the University of Chicago in fall 2021, also conducted research to learn how plants build their microbiomes by studying Arabidopsis, a popular plant model in microbiome research.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

Warren Woods Ecological Field Station

Concrete floors to maintain temperature and reduce fluctuations Small deep freezer for research samples to minimize generation of heat

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Lab separated from living space by glass walls and located on north side of building to offset generated heat

Temperature remains constant, rarely above 76° F in the summer or below 63° F in the winter, even during the polar vortex. Floorboard heaters not yet needed.

DESIGNED AND BUILT BY GO LOGIC

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Large overhang to reduce solar gain

2,400 42 under $1 million $160

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE

THE

Superinsulated building shell, patented insulated foundation system and thick walls

HOUSE

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The field station is the first Passive House laboratory in North America.

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A building that uses design principles to achieve extreme energy efficiency while maintaining temperatures within a specific comfort window

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PASSIVE HOUSE DEFINITION

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The station consists of a lab, seminar space, kitchen and three sleeping cabins.

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Minimal windows

SQUARE FEET (MAIN HOUSE)

ACRES (PROPERTY)

COST OF CONSTRUCTION

MONTHLY ELECTRIC

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Metal screens to cover windows and reduce solar heat gain in summer

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UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES, HANNA HOLBORN GRAY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER

RESEARCH ROOTS IN MICHIGAN The University of Chicago has close historical ties to field research in the southern Lake Michigan region, most notably

by Henry Chandler Cowles, PhD, (pictured at right) and his students. Cowles, a botany professor in the late 19th and early 20th century, is often called the father of American ecology.

Focused on teaching in the latter part of his career, he pioneered experiential learning in the field with hundreds of students in his botany courses. The Department of Ecology and Evolution established the field site and station following a generous bequest from the estate of Harriet Cowles Waller, the botanist’s daughter.

“I do all of my work in India, but we haven’t been for two years because of COVID,” said Trevor Price, PhD, Professor of Ecology and Evolution and 10

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

the station’s new acting director. “So, we’ve been looking at projects, and my students are doing fieldwork they would have done in India.”

First-year PhD student Laura Cespedes Arias began her research career studying Andean birds as a student in her native Colombia.

Now she studies how behavior plays a role in forming new species and how bird species are hybridized. Toward her dissertation, she plans to capture bird calls in the Himalayas with the new sound recording equipment she is testing at the field station.

Kristina Fialko, a senior PhD student in the Price lab who studies how light in the forest environment influences the evolution of bird colors and patterns, has been testing light sensors on the grounds and working on a comprehensive measurement of light types. When the borders open back up, she’ll take these sensors to the Himalayas.

THE

RESEARCH

Collaborators from around the world have visited the field station to conduct outdoor research on transgenic plants, which is very difficult to do in the European Union due to extreme restrictions on GMO use, and to study aspects of the local ecology, such as the migration patterns of local bird species. Lately, the field station has been used as a retreat for University of Chicago graduate students and faculty seeking a space to share ideas, write research papers and work with data. The field station has also provided a space where researchers who are unable to travel internationally for fieldwork can test their equipment and prepare for future research projects.

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Bridgman Warren Dunes State Park

LAKE MICHIGAN

Warren Woods Ecological Field Station

THE REGION IS AN

Sawyer Gali

en R

iver

IDEAL LOCATION FOR THE STUDY

Warren Woods State Park New Buffalo MICHIGAN I-9

4

INDIANA

Three Oaks

OF ECOLOGICAL SUCCESSION,

which focuses on the structural changes in an ecological community

THE

LOCATION

over time.

The Warren Woods Ecological Field Station is located on 42 acres in Berrien County, and includes remnant beech-maple forest, seasonal wetlands, lowland hardwoods, part of the Galien River, restored mesic prairie, old fields and research test plots.

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The field station is next door to the 311-acre Warren Woods State Park, which represents the last climax beech-maple forest in Michigan and has never been logged. This is thanks to the efforts of industrialist and inventor Edward Kirk Warren, who purchased the land in 1879 to set it aside for preservation. Henry Chandler Cowles pioneered the theory of ecological succession in his doctoral dissertation on the vegetation of the dune habitats in northwestern Indiana and southwestern Michigan. Between Warren Woods and the nearby Warren Dunes State Park, the area contains a complete progressive ecological series, including both the unlogged, old-growth forest and newer, secondary growth.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

GIVE BACK AND MAKE AN IMPACT #GIVINGTUESDAY

11.30.2021

Join together with members of the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association to give back and make an impact in 2021.

Visit giving.uchicago.edu/giving-tuesday to learn how you can make a difference.

@UChicagoMBSAA

ALUMNI PROFILE

A conversation with Pilar Ortega, MD’06, and Joseph Cooper, MD’06

How did you meet, and what was your experience like at Pritzker?

ORTEGA: Joey and I met in college at Johns

Hopkins University. We interviewed at Pritzker on the same day. One of the things that stands out about Pritzker is its commitment to training educators, which definitely resonated with us since being educators is a core part of our careers.

COOPER: We both connected with Pritzker’s

teaches medical Spanish. Her husband, Joseph “Joey” Cooper,

“teacher-of-teachers” ethos. Pritzker provides a challenging environment where students are treated with respect and encouraged to be full members of the team. I try to incorporate that into my own teaching — not just praising students for doing well, but pushing them to rise to the next level.

MD’06, is an associate professor of clinical psychiatry and director of

ORTEGA: On one of my first days at Pritzker, I

BY KATE DOHNER

Pilar Ortega, MD’06, is an emergency medicine physician and assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where she

psychiatry undergraduate medical education at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago campus. In this Q&A, they talk about the importance of patient-physician communication, how they navigate

PHOTO BY ROSALÍA COOPER-ORTEGA

work-life balance and more.

learned that we were not going to have a medical Spanish course because the faculty member who taught it was no longer there. Since I was born in Spain and raised in Miami, it has always been important to me to maintain strong English and Spanish skills both personally and professionally, and I saw this as an opportunity to develop a course.

I created handouts, which eventually grew into my first book, Spanish and the Medical Interview.

How does language, and specifically language discordance, affect healthcare and your experiences in your respective fields?

ORTEGA: Research shows that 75% of the time,

doctors can make a correct diagnosis based on language alone — just by taking a medical history, without a physical exam or lab tests. Think of all the patients with whom we cannot communicate or diagnose effectively because of language discordance.

While physicians obviously can’t speak all 350 languages spoken in the U.S., they can improve their facility with languages common in our population, which is why I’m committed to training clinicians in medical Spanish. This is especially important in emergency medicine, where situations are often urgent, and it’s critical to accurately understand what’s happening with the patient.

Pilar Ortega, MD’06, and Joey Cooper, MD’06

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COOPER: As one of the few bilingual, Spanishspeaking psychiatrists in Chicago, I think it’s important for patients to be able to describe their thought processes and moods in the language they’re most comfortable with to avoid misinterpretations.

When speaking to a patient in Spanish, it forces me to think about how to translate concepts to plain

FAC U LT Y H O N O R S

Siegler receives Maclean Faculty Award

language without using medical jargon because my Spanish vocabulary is more colloquial. And that’s really the challenge in all of medicine — to use patient-centered language.

Could you tell us more about your work as mentors?

ORTEGA: It’s important for young people to be

able to see someone like themselves in their field with whom they can connect. To that end, in 2017, I founded the Medical Organization for Latino Advancement (MOLA) to help Latinx people pursuing the health professions advance in their careers and build a community in which diversity and multilingualism are celebrated. We offer mentorship opportunities to students who may not otherwise have the chance to work with Latinx healthcare professionals.

M

COOPER: As a former

residency program director, I’ve interviewed many prospective applicants and advised students on the process. In conversations with students, I emphasize the importance of showing your passion, which can be empowering for them. Finding your passion, displaying it and energizing your work with it are important parts of a student’s growth into their professional identity.

How do you approach work-life balance?

COOPER: We’ve approached work-life balance in an

evolving way over the course of our medical careers.

We have four children, the first two of whom were born during residency. We each took time off, so that one of us was home with the kids when they were babies. We’re focused on making sure that we’re able to do what we want career-wise, while balancing that with time spent as a family.

ark Siegler, MD’67, the Lindy Bergman Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Surgery,

received a Norman Maclean Faculty Award for extraordinary contributions to teaching and student life within the University of Chicago community.

Established in 1997, the awards are named in honor of Norman Maclean, PhD’40, the critically acclaimed author of A River Runs Through It who taught at UChicago for 40 years. The awards are presented by the UChicago Alumni Association and the Alumni Board.

Ortega and Cooper before opening their letters on Match Day in 2006. They both completed their residencies at the University of Chicago Medicine.

Siegler, Director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics and Executive Director of the Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence, is internationally known for his work in the field of clinical medical ethics, a field he created and named in 1974. More than 600 physicians and other health professionals have trained at the MacLean Center, the largest program in clinical medical ethics in the world.

Siegler, whose research interests include the

ORTEGA: “Evolving” is the perfect word to describe

ethics of the doctor-patient relationship,

our approach. It’s a sort of dance of priorities, and you have to be flexible. Children’s needs change as they grow, as do our own career goals, so you can’t necessarily plan too far ahead, and that’s okay. Our experience shows that it’s possible to achieve success in your personal and professional life, while also integrating your identity and values into your work.

living-donor organ transplantation, end-of-life care, ethics consultation and medical decision making, has published more than 240 journal articles, 70 book chapters and six books. The ninth edition of his book Clinical Ethics will be released soon. He has practiced and taught internal medicine at the University for more than 50 years.

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Joint mission Service to their country. Service to their patients. How experiences in the military have shaped the careers of Pritzker School of Medicine and Biological Sciences Division alumni, faculty and trainees.

PHOTO BY ANNE RYAN

Emergency medicine physicians Michael McCartin, MD’18, left, and Benjamin Bowman, MD’20, served in the military before medical school.

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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

Benjamin Bowman, MD’20 Emergency Medicine Resident PGY-2 | U.S. Army Captain (CPT), Emergency Physician STORIES BY NANCY AVERETT

Benjamin Bowman, MD’20, translated Chinese communications for the U.S. Army.

W

hile working as a military attaché for the U.S. Embassy in Bamako, Mali, Benjamin Bowman, MD’20, focused on counterterrorism and humanitarian work in the West African country, traveling to Malian military bases to set up HIV testing and treatment.

“It taught me a lot about resourcerestricted medicine that I carry with me to this day,” said Bowman, now an emergency medicine resident at the University of Chicago Medicine. “Many of the military bases didn’t have electricity or paved roads, and so now, when I think about my patients on the South Side, I’ll ask: ‘Do they have access to food? How did they get here?

Who’s going to take them to the pharmacy to get their medications?’”

Bowman grew up in a small town in Colorado. His plans for college literally went up in smoke when his family home caught fire his senior year and the documents he needed to apply for scholarships burned. Bowman’s mother, who worked as a secretary at the local U.S. Army recruiting office, pointed out that the military would pay for him to learn new languages and travel the world. “She helped

“ The military fosters consummate teamwork, even though there is a rank structure. You can and should count on your team behind and beside you. This mindset really helps me, because as a resident it’s easy to become disheartened by workload or health disparities. In the Emergency Department, I see nurses, attendings, paramedics, techs, consultants, police officers and our administrators as part of a big team. We achieve so much more when we work as a team.”

Benjamin Bowman, MD’20

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me understand what a socioeconomic elevator the military could be,” he said.

The Army sent Bowman to Monterey, California, where he spent two years studying Mandarin Chinese at the Defense Language Institute. He was then assigned to Hawaii, where by day he studied international relations at Hawai‘i Pacific University while working nights for the National Security Agency as a cryptolinguist, listening in on and translating Chinese communications. He applied for the Mali assignment to broaden his experience, and there he picked up Bambara, the market language, and French.

In 2010, Bowman left the Army to work as a Foreign Service Officer in China. As a press, cultural and education attaché, he worked to destigmatize HIV infection in southwest China and advocate for progressive government policies. Two years later, when Bowman’s mother fell victim to the opioid crisis, he decided it was time to move closer to home. He took a job in Washington, D.C., as a linguist researcher and began volunteering as an emergency medical technician and eventually applied to medical school.

Bowman, who is gay, served under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a Clinton administration policy (repealed in 2011) that prohibited the military from discriminating against gay, lesbian or bisexual soldiers as long as they kept their sexual identities hidden. “I just poured myself into my work,” he said. “I thought, if I can’t be emotionally and personally successful, I’ll at least be professionally successful.”

Today, he is happily married and planning for a family. He loves working as an ER doctor, in part because the job requires the same kind of creativity and flexibility that he learned in the Army. “In the military there are a lot of DIY moments, where there’s just no manual for some things,” he said. “I think in emergency medicine, being able to think on your feet and say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do it this way and make it work,’ is similar, knowing that our common mission is making sure that the patient gets the best care possible.”

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Michael McCartin, MD’18 EMS Fellow | Pararescueman, Staff Sergeant, U.S. Air Force

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Michael McCartin, MD'18, served in an elite Air Force unit as a Pararescueman (PJ).

U.S. Army personnel train at UChicago Medicine’s Level 1 trauma center Page 25

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ichael McCartin, MD’18, jumped in and out of helicopters during his first deployment as an Air Force Pararescueman (PJ) in Afghanistan.

His job was to fly out to the battlefield, scoop up injured soldiers, stabilize them and bring them to a military hospital for medical care. At the age of 21, he was transporting soldiers who’d been severely burned or injured by improvised explosive devices — sometimes attending their funerals that night on the airstrip — and he yearned for more knowledge to help them.

So, he asked the base physicians question after question: “How do you manage this chest tube?” and “How do I know when I should push more sedation?”

Afghanistan provided the first inkling that he might want a career in medicine, but he still had a long way to go — both in education and self-confidence. McCartin, who grew up in a blue-collar family in Evergreen Park, Illinois, was motivated by the 9/11 attacks to join the military after high school. His dad showed him a newspaper article about PJs, who train intensely as parachutists, scuba divers and rock climbers to rescue injured soldiers.

McCartin set his sights on beating the odds and joining the elite force — only 10% of those who attempt the two-year special warfare pipeline for PJ trainees graduate.

He deployed to Afghanistan, then Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. Meanwhile, McCartin’s girlfriend, now his wife, enrolled at Arizona State University and encouraged him to think about college.

After four years and 10 months of active duty, McCartin planned his transition to the Air Force Reserve and to getting his degree. He was not accepted initially at ASU, so he enrolled in community college.

Slowly, he began to gain confidence that he’d made the right choice. After a year, he was accepted at ASU, where he earned straight As while devoting one weekend a month to his Reserve duties. One day, a PJ teammate told him that he’d been accepted to medical school. McCartin replied that he was thinking of becoming a physician

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

assistant. “He said, ‘Why not med school?’ and I was like, ‘You think I can get into med school?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I think you can get into med school.’ And that was what I needed, I just needed someone to believe in me and tell me that.”

Now McCartin mentors other PJs, helping them study for the MCAT and critiquing their personal statements. After completing his three-year residency in emergency medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine, he’s now an EMS Fellow, back in a helicopter, picking up critically ill or injured patients as a flight doctor for UChicago Medicine’s Aeromedical Network.

Practicing emergency medicine feels like the right fit, he said, because it blends his military and medical training. “I want my two life experiences to complement each other,” he said.

PHOTO BY EILEEN RYAN

Kenneth Wilson, MD Professor of Surgery and Trauma Medical Director | Colonel, U.S. Army Reserve

D

uring his 2013 deployment to a remote military base along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, trauma surgeon Kenneth Wilson, MD, learned three local children had been badly burned.

Wilson and his team admitted the children, intubated them and arranged to transfer

them three days later to a new children’s hospital operated by the French. The helicopter flight was diverted, and the children were sent to an Afghan hospital with no ventilators or oxygen. Two of the children died.

“A month or so later, I remember seeing the dad,” recalled Wilson, now Trauma Medical Director at the University of Chicago Medicine. Wilson, fighting back tears, told him how sorry he was. “If I had known that sending any of your children away from here would have led to that,” he said, “we wouldn’t have done it.” The father thanked him for saving his 9-year-old daughter’s life.

Making difficult decisions in a stressful atmosphere has defined Wilson’s medical career. In addition to his many deployments, the U.S. Army Reserve Colonel has worked in busy urban trauma centers in Detroit, Atlanta and now Chicago, treating patients who live in neighborhoods prone to gun violence.

His experiences have honed his expertise treating difficult cases such as a femoral artery blown apart — by either a bullet in Chicago or by a bomb in Kandahar. “I’ve probably done 300 femoral artery surgeries,” he said.

Wilson learned how to work expertly without backup during his first deployment. A graduate of Morehouse School of Medicine, he joined the Army during his last year of residency in Atlanta to help pay his tuition bill. He completed his trauma and surgical critical care fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He expected to pay back the Army by working one weekend a month, but that changed on 9/11. The day his fellowship ended, Wilson was sent to Kuwait, where he had to figure out any surgical difficulty on his own. After that came deployments to Afghanistan and then Iraq and back to Afghanistan. During one deployment, he organized a shoe drive for villagers after seeing many foot injuries from going barefoot.

In 2019, he was a member of a fourperson resuscitative team assigned to a GHOST mission — “with special forces, kicking in doors, while you’re a few yards behind them ready to take casualties,” he said. Due to the dangers inherent

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“ I struggle with not being able to go back to Afghanistan (and the withdrawal), but at the same time I recognize the danger and what I put my family through.”

Kenneth Wilson, MD

PHOTO BY ASHLEY HEHER

Kenneth Wilson, MD, left, with Timothy Plackett, DO, MPH, a trauma surgeon from the U.S. Army who will spend three years working in the University of Chicago Medicine trauma center.

in this type of mission, members of the medical team must complete weapons and maneuver training.

Wilson knew working in busy urban trauma centers could help other military surgeons keep their skills sharp. in 2019, he was instrumental in UChicago Medicine becoming part of the recently created Army Military-Civilian Trauma Team Training program, which brings Army doctors to Level 1 trauma centers to train and practice.

Even the best skills, though, can’t save lives if there aren’t enough hospital beds to go around. Only one of the young burn victims returned alive to the village.

Wilson — who has four children of his own — said: “It was eight years ago, but I can still see all three of those kids like it was yesterday.”

Kenneth Wilson, MD, was deployed several times to the Middle East and Afghanistan, most recently in 2019.

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Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD’04, MPH Senior Associate Dean, Professor of Anesthesiology and Director of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment, Medical College of Wisconsin | Former Commander, U.S. Navy Medical Corps

I Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD’04, MPH, served 10 years in the U.S. Navy.

Ehrenfeld testified in 2019 before the House Armed Services Committee Subcomittee on Military Personnel: “I would like to state unequivocally that there is no medically valid reason — including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — to exclude transgender individuals from military service.”

n 2015, when the U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter asked if any of the service members attending his town hall in Kandahar, Afghanistan, had questions, Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD’04, MPH, knew he had to speak up.

An anesthesiologist in the U.S. Navy Reserve, Ehrenfeld had recently treated and become friendly with a transgender soldier who was secretly defying the

military ban on transgender soldiers and terrified of being discovered. Ehrenfeld walked up to the microphone and asked Carter where he stood on allowing transgender people to openly serve in the military. “I don’t think anything but their suitability for service should preclude them,” Carter said.

Ehrenfeld, who joined the Navy during his anesthesiology residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, has a passion for service and advocacy. He said he joined the military, in part, because he was fortunate to do his medical training at top institutions, including the Pritzker School of Medicine. “I thought, ‘Why shouldn’t our service members in Afghanistan benefit from somebody like me, who has that experience and training to help them? I just felt like I had something to bring to the table.”

He served for 10 years, earning the rank of Commander in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. There are at least three service members who are alive today because of Ehrenfeld’s expertise and numerous transgender soldiers who may appreciate his sense of responsibility on that day in 2015. Eighteen months later, the ban was lifted. Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning, who then served as Carter’s chief of staff and attended the town hall, told Ehrenfeld that he was “the spark that lit the fire” and got the ban lifted. (Later, a Trump administration policy restricting transgender military service went into effect in 2019. President Joe Biden reversed it in early 2021.)

Read an interview with Dr. Ehrenfeld: mbsaa.uchicago.edu/2021/05/service-tocountry-and-community

“ My dad served in the Army, as a dentist. My grandfathers on both sides served. And if you look all the way back, on my mom’s side, one of my ancestors served as a medical officer under George Washington in the Revolutionary War.” Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD’04, MPH

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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

PHOTO BY NANCY WONG

He left active duty after his five years of required service, completed a postbaccalaureate premedical program at Goucher College, and applied to Pritzker through a special admissions program.

His adjustment to civilian life hasn’t been easy, and starting medical school during a pandemic hasn’t helped, but talking to his old roommate reminds him that he’s not alone.

Zachary Newman Second-year Medical Student | Captain, U.S. Army Medical Service Corps (Individual Ready Reserve)

Z

achary Newman, MS2, talks to his old roommate from West Point nearly every day. Both are now in medical school — Newman at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and his former roommate at Brown University.

And both are going through the transition from military life to civilian life, which Newman said has been more challenging than he imagined it would be.

“I definitely have not fully left the military world mentally and emotionally, and that’s been really unexpected,” Newman said.

After graduating from West Point, he was stationed at Fort Hood, where he worked as a medical platoon leader and health services support officer. “I was the go-to person on my unit’s staff on questions about the medical readiness of the unit,” he said.

Later, he deployed to Kuwait for the better part of a year with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division as a medical planner.

Newman’s unit supported the United States Central Command Area of Responsibility; conducted joint exercises with partner nations, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia; and provided artillery support to combat operations against ISIS in Iraq.

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Chris Craddock PhD Candidate | Technical Sergeant, U.S. Air Force Reserve

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hris Craddock, a PhD candidate in Cell and Molecular Biology, joined the U.S. Air Force after high school and learned to fix communications and navigation equipment on large transport planes known as C-17s.

Six months later, the 9/11 attacks occurred and soon he found himself on nearly constant deployment, including to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and multiple times to Rhein-Main Air Base (now closed) in Frankfurt, Germany. In 2006, he left active duty to pursue his bachelor’s degree at Northeastern Illinois University, where he fell in love with science.

After participating in the University of Chicago Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, Craddock decided to get his doctorate. He enrolled at the

PhD candidate Chris Craddock deployed with the Air Force to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Germany to work on C-17 transport planes.

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University of Chicago, and began studying pre-mRNA splicing in the lab of Jonathan Staley, PhD, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology. Eventually, he hopes to teach at a state university like the one he attended, so he can help nontraditional students connect to studying science.

“The Air Force was really big on attention to detail,” he said. “I find that’s really helpful in science, because if you’re doing an experiment and you forget something or you do something wrong, the experiment could fail. If the experiment gives you some results you weren’t expecting or results that are not unambiguous, you can use that attention to detail to figure out what’s going on.”

Benjamin Kyle Potter, MD’01 Professor and Chair, Department of Surgery, Uniformed Services University F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine | Colonel, U.S. Army Medical Corps

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enjamin Kyle Potter, MD ’01, was inspired to become an orthopedic surgeon during his third year of medical school, when he did a rotation with Terrance Peabody, MD, an authority on limb salvage surgery for cancer and trauma patients.

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Benjamin Kyle Potter, MD’01, provided surgical care for wounded soldiers during deployments to Afghanistan and Kuwait.

“Terry Peabody was just amazing,” Potter said. “He did the coolest surgeries and had a great bedside manner.” His decision to follow in Peabody’s footsteps has been a boon for soldiers who suffer blast injuries to their limbs on the battlefield. A graduate of West Point, Potter has used his surgical expertise during deployments to Afghanistan in 2011 and 2016 and Kuwait in 2020. He is the chief orthopedic surgeon for the Amputee Program at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and conducts research in trauma-related amputation techniques and outcomes.

Over the past 20 years, as the U.S. fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many soldiers suffered blast wounds to their extremities requiring multiple surgeries, often starting at the base hospital overseas with their care continuing at Walter Reed.

“I’m not a hero,” Potter said, “but I have a job where I get to take care of our nation’s heroes and that’s very cool.”

April Sullivan Fitzgerald, MD’96, MEd, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, was deployed to the Pentagon after the 9/11 attack.

Read an interview with Dr. Potter: mbsaa. uchicago.edu/2016/05/saving-limbs-and-lives

“ I think West Point prepared me very well for medical school and being a physician. I learned personal discipline and time management, which continue to pay dividends today in terms of my medical practice and work-life balance.

I continue to value being a team member and part of something bigger than myself.”

Benjamin Kyle Potter, MD’01

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

April Sullivan Fitzgerald, MD’96, MEd

following the Pentagon attack, everything from airway reactivity to PTSD. Fitzgerald was deployed to the Pentagon.

The site was under high security with M16 rifles, gas masks and evacuation drills. As events developed, Fitzgerald would ready hundreds of troops for Iraqi deployment and serve as the medical officer for the first anniversary 9/11 ceremony.

After the activation, Fitzgerald continued to serve in the Air Force Reserve while on faculty at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. She continued up the ranks to Colonel, retiring from the Air Force in 2017 after 30 years of service. She is a founding director for the Air Force Academy (AFA) Foundation and serves on the executive committee of its board.

Assistant Professor, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Founding Director, Air Force Academy Foundation | Colonel, U.S. Air Force (Retired)

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he September 11, 2001, attacks changed the lives of many, including April Sullivan Fitzgerald, MD’96, MEd. Fitzgerald, a 1987 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, served her active-duty commitment prior to matriculating at the Pritzker School of Medicine. While in medical school, she continued military service as a reserve officer performing duty on weekends.

“My third year at Pritzker, I had a military test that could only occur in person on a Saturday,” Fitzgerald recalled. “The test conflicted with rounds, but my ward attending allowed me to arrive late that day.

Such an accommodation is essential to a member’s ability to serve.”

Six years later, in the wake of 9/11, President George W. Bush activated military reserve forces. Fitzgerald — then Major Fitzgerald, U.S. Air Force Reserve — received a call from headquarters. The country needed her to treat service members who had a range of issues

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Robert Porter, MD’60, and his wife, Betty Robins Porter

Robert Porter, MD’60 Associate Professor Emeritus, Dartmouth College | Captain, U.S. Air Force (Retired)

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obert Porter, MD’60, once tagged along on one of the U.S. government’s secretive Cold War missions — a 24-hour flight on a B-52 strategic air bomber loaded with thermonuclear weapons. Called Operation

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Robert Porter, MD’60, left, was stationed at an Air Force base in Montana for two years.

Ralph Layman, MD’01 Director, Trauma Services, Chrome Dome, the daily flights required the pilots to circle the U.S. and Canada near borders with the USSR, so they could strike quickly in the event of nuclear war.

For Porter, the ride-along was a diversion from his duties as a physician at an Air Force base in Glasgow, Montana, where fighter units were stationed to repel any USSR air invasion that might come from the north. “I treated mostly ear problems from air pressure changes,” he said. “I also delivered a few babies.”

Porter had been doing his internship in orthopedic surgery at the University of Iowa when he and many of his classmates learned they would be drafted. He spent three months in San Antonio attending flight surgeon training. “That’s where they shoot you out of an ejection chair and take you up to 35,000 feet, and you have to take your mask off so you can experience oxygen deprivation,” Porter recalled.

Today, Porter, who went on to have a successful career as an orthopedic surgeon, looks back with pride on his two-year stint in the military. “The guys I knew who went to Vietnam really had their lives torn up,” he said. “I felt very lucky that I wasn’t called to do that, but I was responsible for the people who kept things from being dropped on the U.S.”

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HCA Henrico Doctors’ Hospital | Colonel, U.S. Army Medical Corps

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alph Layman, MD’01, sat in the cavernous belly of a transport plane with his patient, an Army Ranger medic who’d been shot in the upper forearm during a firefight in a remote area of Afghanistan. Layman was quite possibly the only person in the country who had the training to reconstruct the medic’s severely damaged blood vessels. But he was serving in a makeshift hospital in the same remote area.

Now the two were flying in the middle of the night to Bagram Air Force Base, which

Ralph Layman, MD’01, is a veteran of six deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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had a better-equipped operating room. “It was like something out of a movie,” Layman said, recalling that day in 2015.

The surgery was a success. Today, the medic is a civilian computer programmer with two functional hands. Layman, now a Colonel in the Army Medical Corps, looks back on that experience as one of the most memorable in his six deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now director of trauma services at HCA Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Virginia, Layman said he decided to enlist after a Grand Rounds he attended as a medical student. A military surgeon described working on forward surgical teams, which follow battalions around to offer immediate surgical care to injured soldiers.

Layman’s first deployment was in 2007, first deployment with the Forward Surgical Team in 2010 and first deployment with Army Special Forces in 2015.

Operating in a war zone reinforced his view that trauma surgery requires commitment and stamina. “Sometimes over there it can be dull, nothing happening and then sometimes, they’re just bringing them in, one after another, and the work doesn’t stop, you get them in order, who’s the most sick — then you just move on down the line.”

U.S. Army trains military healthcare personnel at UChicago Medicine’s Level 1 trauma center

BY ASHLEY HEHER

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s many as 30 U.S. Army physicians, nurses and medics will train at the University of Chicago Medicine ahead of deployments in a unique partnership designed to share knowledge and experience.

Through the Army Medicine Department’s Military-Civilian Trauma Team Training program, personnel in Forward Resuscitative Surgical Teams (FRSTs) will work with civilian counterparts to provide critical care and trauma treatments at the busy South Side trauma center.

“We’re learning best practices and using what’s been learned in Iraq and Afghanistan to directly change the care we’re providing on the South Side,” said Army trauma surgeon Timothy Plackett, DO, MPH, who began working at UChicago Medicine in January 2021. “And the care we’ll be providing on the South Side will directly change the care we’ll be able to provide when our team is deployed.”

Plackett and fellow trauma surgeon Nicholas Jaszczak, MD, will be joined in Hyde Park by additional team members by the end of the year. Eventually, the program will include emergency medicine physicians, emergency and critical care nurses, anesthesiologists and certified nurse anesthetists, combat medics, operating room technicians, licensed practical nurses, and other surgical subspecialties.

Plackett said he’s already performed about 50% more surgeries at UChicago Medicine than he would have at a military hospital. He’s also begun forging new relationships across the University of Chicago, where he’s already involved in several basic-science research projects.

The Army medical personnel — part of the Fort Bragg-based 759th FRST — will train in Chicago through embedded or short-term assignments. Embedded uchicagomedicine.org/midway

PHOTO BY JORDAN PORTER-WOODRUFF

Lieutenant General R. Scott Dingle, left, Surgeon General of the U.S. Army and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Medical Command, visited the UChicago Medicine Level 1 trauma center in late October.

Among the staff members he met are Kenneth Wilson, MD, Trauma Medical Director, center; emergency medicine resident Benjamin Bowman, MD’20, and Stephen Estime, MD, Assistant Professor of Anesthesia and Critical Care, right.

healthcare workers will serve as full-time staff for up to three years.

“Expanding our educational mission to include Army clinicians extends and builds upon our training mission and, in turn, brings the military’s experience treating blunt and penetrating wounds to our hospital,” said Kenneth S. Polonsky, MD, Dean and Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs at the University of Chicago. “That benefits our care teams, the broader organization and, ultimately, our patients.”

UChicago Medicine’s trauma program cared for about 4,400 adult and pediatric patients in 2020, a 47% increase from the previous year.

About 57% of the adult trauma patients had blunt injuries from incidents such as car accidents and falls; 41% had penetrating wounds, often from shootings or stabbings.

Another 2% had other injuries, such as burns.

A case mix that includes everything from intentional violence to farm accidents makes an ideal training atmosphere for

Army teams, said Kenneth Wilson, MD, Medical Director of UChicago Medicine’s trauma center and a military surgeon in the U.S. Army Reserve.

“Military hospitals mainly provide healthcare services to a young healthy population, so there are rarely the types of injuries you’d see in a busy civilian trauma center that regularly treats people who’ve been in high-speed crashes or drive-by shootings,” said Wilson, who has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and was a driving force behind the new Army-UChicago Medicine partnership. “So, it can be a steep learning curve to go from that kind of environment to someplace like Syria. We can provide an ideal middle ground that lets the team train together and build their trauma ‘muscle memory.’ They’ll be able to take the skills they learned here, get on a plane for deployment and immediately be able to save lives out there.”

The Army launched the medical program in 2019. Today it operates at seven premier trauma centers across the country.

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GRAPHIC MEDICINE

Nothing funny: Can comics educate about racism and disparities?

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STORY BY JAMIE BARTOSCH COMICS BY SHIRLENE OBUOBI, MD’18

In her comics featuring ShirlyWhirl, MD, Shirlene Obuobi, MD’18, takes on a range of topics, from imposter syndrome and the rigors of residency to structural racism and healthcare disparities.

From the creator of ShirlyWhirl, MD, a book with ‘just words’

Cardiology fellow Shirlene Obuobi’s debut novel will be published in summer 2022 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

“So I did a thing and wrote

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a book,” Obuobi announced on Twitter. “Yes, one with just words!”

On Rotation is the story of a Ghanaian American medical student who struggles to balance the expectations

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

raphic medicine is taking on the pandemic, healthcare disparities and racial inequity, one powerful comic at a time.

University of Chicago Medicine cardiology fellow Shirlene Obuobi, MD’18, the creator of the comic ShirlyWhirl, MD, believes comics can be an effective way to reach an audience about racial issues.

“It introduces ideas with a much lower barrier of entry,” said Obuobi, whose work has appeared in The Lancet, Axios, doximity.com and other publications.

“The goal is acknowledgement and discussion. It’s to stir up empathy. Putting something like that in visual terms is powerful.

“That’s what I try to do in my comics — elicit that emotional response,” she said.

Today’s culture demands visual and concise communication, so these eye-catching forms of storytelling — which can be read in less than a minute — can effectively promote diversity and inclusivity, and share viewpoints about healthcare issues. Cartoonists of different races and ethnicities are more likely to add elements to their comics that are typically absent from medical illustrations, such as a Black doctor in a white medical coat or use of ethnic vernacular language. These can have a powerful impact on all readers, said Brian Callender, AB’97, AM’98, MD’04, Associate Professor of Medicine, who teaches classes in the emerging field of graphic medicine, which uses comics to communicate about health and medicine.

While each person will interpret a comic differently, it can stoke curiosity and engagement.

“Some comics have an entertainment aspect to them, but also a critique of the system and how

of her strict parents, the needs of her friends and the demands of her clinical training — “only to fall for a guy who might not fit into her world,” according to the publisher’s description.

“It’s a love story,” Obuobi wrote on Twitter. “It’s accessible. But it’s meant to teach — about the experience of being first-generation, about medicine, about blackness.”

PHOTO BY JEAN LACHAT

“ Nowadays, there’s so much information and content out there, you have to find different ways to grab people’s attention. And these comics can have great emotional impact.”

Shirlene Obuobi, MD’18

Shirlene Obuobi, MD’18, and Brian Callender, AB’97, AM’98, MD’04

This comic sheds a light on disparities in National Institutes of Health funding, philanthropic support and annual publications for cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease, which both affect about the same number of people in the U.S. But cystic fibrosis predominantly affects white people, while most patients with sickle cell disease are Black.

Read articles by Shirlene Obuobi, MD, Brian Callender, MD, and colleagues in The Lancet: “Covid-19, comics and the visual culture of contagion” (October 10, 2020) and “Comics as anti-racism education and advocacy” (May 1, 2020).

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we treat patients,” Callender said. “They reflect the moment that we’re in, especially during the pandemic.”

COVID-19 shined a light on healthcare inequities and increased demand for all types of graphic medicine, Callender said. This content has included everything from illustrations that explain how the virus spreads to comics that use data points on racial disparities in testing, infections and vaccinations.

Comics also were used to tell stories of frontline doctors and nurses during the pandemic.

Using comics to educate medical staff about racial issues can help them develop empathy and communicate more effectively, thereby providing better care, Callender said.

“Comics can help us have a deeper understanding about the patient’s situation and the barriers they have. Then we can ask better questions and create an environment where they feel understood,” said MK Czerwiec, a nurse, cartoonist and University of Chicago Medicine graphic medicine teacher who recently was named the first Comics editor of the journal Literature and Medicine.

Medical publications and institutions are seeing value in using visual narratives to introduce different viewpoints that feature doctors and patients of color.

Graphic medicine features on a variety of subjects now appear in medical journals, including JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine.

“It’s not that we’re doing more of these comics, but people are paying more attention,” Czerwiec said.

“What’s changed is that people are more open to it now and educating themselves to what’s out there.”

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The ‘Colon Whisperer’ David T. Rubin, MD’94, and his career-long quest to improve the lives of people with inflammatory bowel disease, advance treatment and discover a cure

BY STEPHAN BENZKOFER

P David T. Rubin, MD’94, conducts clinical and translational research on IBD.

PHOTO BY NANCY WONG

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atients come through his door looking for answers and relief. The symptoms that began as a nuisance have turned painful and chronic.

Their bodies have turned on them.

David T. Rubin, MD’94, is a world-renowned expert on the treatment and research of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. He’s a tireless educator — in classrooms, at conferences and on Twitter, where he’s known as @IBDMD — and an ardent advocate for people living with IBD. His preeminence was recognized in 2020 with the Sherman Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in his field.

Becker’s Healthcare recently named him to its list of “10 GI Leaders to Know.”

“David is in a very elite category,” said Miguel Regueiro, MD, chair of the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Cleveland Clinic, who has known Rubin for decades.

“He’s doing cutting-edge clinical research and is really one of the leaders of education in the field of IBD internationally.”

Rubin is the type of doctor who becomes lifelong friends with many of his patients — you’re never a former patient of Dr. Rubin’s — and receives gifts like custom-made coffee mugs proclaiming “Colon Whisperer.”

For his new patients, he is the confident, optimistic, reassuring voice they need to hear.

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“The first thing I tell my patients, especially those who have been newly diagnosed, is that we’re going to treat it early, and we’re going to treat it hard, because after we do that I would like you to be in remission the rest of your life,” said Rubin, Joseph B. Kirsner Professor of Medicine and Section Chief of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at the University of Chicago Medicine. He created and is also Co-Director of the Digestive Diseases Center.

The problem, as Rubin knows as well as anyone in the world, is that it is rarely that easy. Rubin explains to his patients that while recent advances provide doctors and patients with the tools to manage these diseases, none is perfect, and there are no cures.

But he is also sure his patients hear one final thought: This disease will not ruin your life. It does not define you. These are particularly comforting and important ideas to hear, because Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis typically first develop in teens and young adults between the ages of 15 and 30.

Which likely explains another mug he received as a gift: “Keep calm and call Dr. Rubin.”

Learning from patients As many as 70,000 Americans will be diagnosed with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis next year, joining more than 3 million others in the U.S. who live with these chronic conditions. Just as with other immune-mediated diseases, they are becoming more common.

Globally, as many as 10 million people live with IBD, with the highest incidence in Europe and North America. But since 1990, the incidence in more recently industrialized nations in Asia, Africa and South America also has been rising rapidly.

“When I started my training, we basically had no treatments,” Rubin recalled. “Now there are more than 15 available, effective and safe treatments.”

The development of biological therapies for IBD was revolutionary. Biological therapies are proteins

PHOTO BY SANDRO MILLER

The newest treatment focus is on synthetic targeted small molecules, which work on specific enzymes or other mechanisms of inflammation.

These molecules are small enough to be delivered as pills and be absorbed into the bloodstream.

And finally, 5-ASA therapies, which Rubin has been studying for years, were first developed in the early 1950s to treat arthritis. These therapies don’t suppress the immune response, but are believed to affect the immune activity in the lining of the bowel.

With so many options, it would seem that patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis can live worry-free, even if a cure isn’t found. But then the human body proves again why it is such a marvelous example of biological engineering.

With each new patient, Rubin wonders: “Is this the patient who is going to be the key to what we’re trying to find?”

David T. Rubin, MD’94, is a clinician, researcher, educator and advocate. He recently was named chair of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s 2021–24 National Scientific Advisory Committee. Early in the pandemic, he established himself as a go-to expert on IBD and COVID-19.

uchicagomedicine.org/midway

that are made in living cells. There are now three classes of biological therapies available for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The first class, the anti-TNF class, includes drugs that block the body’s signals that fight infection or cause inflammation.

By targeting the inflammatory protein called TNF, anti-TNF therapies can shut down inflammation broadly across the body. These drugs are also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and other inflammatory conditions.

Another biological antibody therapy selectively targets the white blood cells on their way to the bowel. The newest antibody class targets a different inflammatory protein called IL-23, and works in IBD and psoriasis.

“The strategy is to turn down the overactive immune response long enough so that the body can take over and then heal,” Rubin explained.

“Remember that we’re not treating the cause of IBD, we’re treating the result of it,” Rubin said.

“The immune system of the gut is there to protect us. It still thinks there is a threat. So, it can be just a matter of time before it finds a new pathway and the inflammation returns.”

As a clinician-scientist, Rubin attacks these problems from all angles, pushing our understanding of biology and disease in his research while analyzing and assessing the stream of information coming from his patients. Each patient’s unique biology might provide a special insight into how IBD works.

“So these are the things — I’m not making this up — that literally keep me awake at night,” said Rubin. “Is this the patient who is going to be the key to what we’re trying to find?”

There’s one more complication. Rubin and his colleagues across IBD research and treatment may be dealing with multiple diseases.

“It might be because what we call Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are more like 50 different diseases that all look similar, but the body can only express itself in certain ways,” Rubin said.

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PHOTO BY ANDREW COLLINGS

Learn more about research at the Marine Biological Laboratory on IBD and the microbiome: UChicagoMedicine.org/IBD-microbiome

Microbiome connection

Eugene Chang, MD’76, studies the link between the microbiome and inflammatory bowel disease.

GI Joe covers the life and career of renowned gastroenterologist Joesph B. Kirsner, MD, PhD, who was Rubin’s mentor.

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One avenue of research focuses on the microbiome — the collection of microbes, be they bacteria, fungi, protozoa or viruses — that lives in and on the human body, with the largest concentration in the gut.

We now know the microbiome is essential for such wide-ranging tasks as brain development, nutrition and fighting infection.

Scientists tell us the microbiome also plays a role in obesity, food allergies and in such diseases as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and, of course, inflammatory bowel disease.

“When you have a healthy immune system in your intestines, it continuously responds to the environment,” Rubin said, explaining that that the gut is exposed to the environment more than any other part of the body except the skin. “So, every time you eat, you’re exposing your intestines to what’s coming from the outside world.”

In normal situations, this sophisticated system becomes mildly inflamed after a meal and then shuts itself off and goes back to a resting state, distinguishing between nutrition and pathogens. “What happens with IBD is that the inflammatory system of the gut is turned on but doesn’t turn itself off, either because the patient has lost their “off switch” or because there is ongoing stimulation by something we have yet to discover,” Rubin said. “Either way, when the inflammation continues, it causes damage.”

As a researcher, Rubin often collaborates with Eugene Chang, MD’76, Martin Boyer Professor of Medicine, who studies how the gut microbiome affects IBD. Chang is the Director of the Microbiome Medicine Project, a collaboration between the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole,

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Massachusetts. Chang founded the program in 2017 to promote crossdisciplinary research in the microbiome and support translational and clinical investigators studying a multitude of disorders, but his interest in the subject dates back to the turn of the millennium. His lab was well-positioned then to be among the first groups to receive grants from the National Institutes of Health Human Microbiome Project.

Chang considers the microbiome to be like another organ of the body, though one that is acquired early in life instead of inherited.

“The human microbiome has changed rapidly in just the past hundred years,” Chang said. “It is influenced by diet, lifestyle and xenobiotics, like antibiotics, that are so common now. So our microbiome is much less diverse. There are certain microbes that have disappeared in many populations.

It is a real disturbance in the normal evolutionary pressures that would determine which microbes we match to our own needs, for example, in immune or metabolic systems.”

Chang said the consequences have not been good, creating a mismatch between us and our microbes.

“I think that underpins the increase in these new age disorders, such as inflammatory bowel disease, but also other autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, such as asthma or rheumatoid arthritis,” he said. “But we’re still just scratching the surface of the science.”

He first met Rubin because they had the same mentor, Joseph B. Kirsner, MD, PhD, who is considered the grandfather of modern IBD research and treatment and put the University of Chicago on the map as an IBD pioneer. (Read more about Kirsner’s relationship with Rubin on the next page.)

“I remember Kirsner saying, ‘You need to meet this really bright, superstar medical student,’” Chang said, though he didn’t really get to know him until he joined the faculty.

Chang said Rubin’s many talents make him a “quadruple threat.”

“He’s an outstanding clinician, a wonderful educator — my gosh, you should listen to him give a talk — and an outstanding clinical investigator,” he said. “And finally, I think he is a superb section chief.

He has vision, he gets things done and knows how to select the right people for key tasks. David really is a remarkable individual.”

Remembering Joseph B. Kirsner, MD, PhD, a legend in the field — and Grandma Pearl’s doctor

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PHOTO BY BART HARRIS

n 1990, David T. Rubin came to Hyde Park, eager to begin his studies as a first-year medical student at the University of Chicago. But first, he had to complete an errand for his grandmother.

David Rubin, MD’94, and Joseph Kirsner, MD, PhD, considered the grandfather of modern IBD research.

When Kirsner stopped practicing medicine at the age of 95, Rubin took on many of his patients.

“Go see if my doctor is still there,” his Grandma Pearl had told him. “He’s very famous, but he might not be alive anymore.”

“What did he do for you?” Rubin asked.

“He saved my life,” she replied. “I have Crohn’s disease.” “ ‘What’s that?’ ” Rubin recalled asking. “I had never heard of it. I knew nothing.”

At the time, the classes and offices were all in Billings Hospital. A dutiful grandson, Rubin found a directory, looked up Joseph B. Kirsner, MD, PhD, and, not bothering to call for an appointment, made his way to the second floor and knocked on his door.

Kirsner wasn’t just any doctor. He transformed the field of gastroenterology and pioneered the study and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. He published more than 750 papers and 18 books, including the authoritative textbook for IBD. Nevertheless, when young David Rubin knocked, Kirsner answered the door himself.

Rubin introduced himself and relayed Grandma Pearl’s message.

The physician, then 81, said, “Oh, come in and tell me about your grandmother.”

“So I walked into this big old academic office with certificates and diplomas on every wall and built-in wooden bookshelves,” Rubin recalled. Kirsner walked over to a file cabinet, opened a drawer, pulled out a published research paper on the use of steroids in treating Crohn’s and said, “Your grandmother was one of the patients in this study.”

uchicagomedicine.org/midway

So began a more than 20-year relationship between the man many consider the grandfather of modern inflammatory bowel disease treatment and the student who would continue his legacy, though it still wasn’t a direct line from that meeting — or the occasional summonses that brought Rubin back to the office over the next few years — and Rubin’s decision to dedicate his career and life to this field.

Rubin said he first envisioned himself as a surgeon, then maybe a cardiologist. Years later, when he was nearing the point when he would have to choose his specialty in internal medicine, he ran into Kirsner. As he would later tell the story, the interaction was brief.

“Hi, Dr. Kirsner,” Rubin said.

Kirsner responded in his hallmark, booming voice, “Don’t go into cardiology. We need you in gastroenterology.” And then he walked on.

And Rubin answered the call.

Kirsner practiced medicine until he was 95, and Rubin agreed to take on many of Kirsner’s patients. That’s not to say Kirsner stopped working. He continued writing, preserving the history of the field of

gastroenterology and the University’s role in it, and giving Grand Rounds lectures.

One of the patients who had the pleasure of working with both Kirsner and Rubin is Seymour “Sy” Taxman, a Chicago real estate developer. Taxman serves on the board of the Gastro-Intestinal Research Foundation, which raises money to fund GI research at the University. Kirsner helped establish the foundation in 1962, and Rubin is its lead scientific advisor today.

“Dr. Rubin is always concerned about me as a person, and that’s very important,” Taxman said, explaining that patients with digestive ailments need compassionate understanding, an idea that Kirsner embraced and preached.

“That philosophy has permeated itself through David Rubin and now the entire section.”

Rubin became Kirsner’s physician, and Rubin’s wife, Rebecca, worked as Kirsner’s secretary and assistant during the final years of his life.

Kirsner died in 2012 at age 101. David Rubin gave a eulogy at the funeral.

“Dr. Kirsner became part of our family,” Rubin told the congregation.

— Stephan Benzkofer

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S T U D E N T AWA R D S

BSD News

BSD Diversity Committee recognizes students for leadership in diversity, equity and inclusion

BY MATT REYER, PHD

T

he Biological Sciences Division Diversity Committee (BDC) recently recognized graduate students and postdoctoral researchers for their leadership in diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Trainee Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Legacy Awards recognize sustained efforts by trainees over several years. The DEI Annual Awards honor trainees for outstanding accomplishments in science and in promoting diversity, equity and inclusion over the past year.

The inaugural winners of the Legacy Award are: Postdoctoral researcher Tamica Collins, PhD, was named an Inspiring Black Scientist by Cell Press, and served

as vice president and co-chair of the Postdoctoral Association Outreach Committee.

Cody Hernandez, graduate student in Cell and Molecular Biology, helped found the Graduate Recruitment Initiative Team (GRIT) and revitalize the University of Chicago chapter of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS).

Elaine Kouame, graduate student in the Committee on Immunology, was the first GRIT representative from the biomedical sciences cluster. She has served as co-lead of the GRIT Womxn’s team since its inception.

Christina Roman, graduate student in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics,

has served as the president of SACNAS, co-founder and director of GRIT and student co-chair of the BDC. Mat Perez-Neut, graduate student in Cancer Biology, is a co-founder of GRIT who also helped lead the effort to revitalize UChicago SACNAS. He has served as a mentor to several students in the NIH Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD).

Dequantarius (DJ) Speed, graduate student in Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB), served as a GRIT Underrepresented Minorities (URM) team leader, helped found the CMB Student/Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Committee and created “Protester Packs” to support and protect Chicago activists.

Juan Manuel Vazquez, SM’20, PhD’20, in Human Genetics, served as

SACNAS treasurer and helped organize the first SACNAS Midwest regional conference.

Winners of the Annual Award are: Juan Apiz-Saab, a graduate student in Cancer Biology, is leader of the GRIT URM team. He helped coordinate events such as the Journal Club for the Culture and Sharing of Diverse Perspectives.

Postdoctoral researcher Katelyn Mika, PhD, created an internship program with an all-girls high school in New York and is a founder of the Chicago Undersea Explorers Society, a partner of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers.

Legacy Award recipients Cody Hernandez, Elaine Kouame, Christina Roman and Mat Perez-Nout also were recognized with DEI Annual Awards.

Inaugural winners of the Trainee Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Legacy Awards are Christina Roman, left, Tamica Collins, PhD, Mat Perez-Neut, Cody Hernandez, Dequantarius (DJ) Speed and Elaine Kouame.

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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

PHOTO BY JASON SMITH

T E AC H I N G AWA R D S

Horne-Badovinac honored for excellence in undergraduate teaching

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ally Horne-Badovinac, PhD, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology and the College, was one of the recipients of this year’s Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award.

A developmental biologist by training, Horne-Badovinac strives to inspire the same sense of awe she felt when she first learned about the subject and hopes to elicit similar feelings from her own students: “I want them to come away with a sense of wonder about development.

I want them to say, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so beautiful.’”

Horne-Badovinac, who has taught Fundamentals of Developmental Biology for 11 years, is thrilled to see students understand difficult concepts like how different genes operate within a pathway. To tackle such topics, she makes her lectures especially interactive, which appeals to the inclinations of University of Chicago

Sally Horne-Badovinac, PhD

undergraduates. “I know everyone says this, but it’s true,” Horne-Badovinac said.

“They are smart, engaged and they really want to learn.”

The Quantrell Award is believed to be the nation’s oldest award for undergraduate teaching.

C OV I D - 1 9

New model generates highly accurate prediction of COVID-19 spread

BY ALISON CALDWELL, PHD

COVID-19 and the flu are different diseases, but both are spread by droplets, fomites and contact. For Ishanu Chattopadhyay, PhD, it made sense to consider whether these similarities could be used to help predict the spread of COVID-19.

Chattopadhyay, Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, and postdoctoral scholar Yi Huang, PhD, drew on their previous experience modeling epidemics and expertise in machine learning to analyze years of past influenza epidemics.

The new risk measure they developed — denoted as the Universal Influenza-like Transmission (UnIT) score — has proven to be better at predicting weekly case counts than the best models currently described.

The work was published October 14 in PLOS Computational Biology. uchicagomedicine.org/midway

The researchers used 10 years of data on influenza hospitalizations nationwide to examine week-to-week trends in patients with the flu, allowing them to determine where infection clusters began and how they spread across the country each year.

Using this data, they were able to produce the UnIT score. Combined with other variables known to be important in the spread of diseases like COVID-19, such as demographic details within a community, the model produced forecasting results that were more accurate on average than any of the other models listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) modeling hub.

“Our model is relatively simple, with far fewer variables than many of the other models being used to predict case counts and deaths. And yet we beat out those other, more complicated models on

average over the entire pandemic timeline,” said first author Huang, now an associate research scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. “This shows us that we can learn something valuable from things we already know, like influenza epidemics, and can combine that knowledge of history with principles in statistics to come up with a new and meaningful way to predict something truly unknown.”

The algorithm developed by the research team has been shared on the CDC’s covid19forecasthub.org, where it can be accessed by other scientists and is used as part of the CDC’s prediction modeling for COVID-19. The researchers hope that future research can incorporate global data trends to determine whether COVID-19 trends are similar around the world, or if there are differences based on population and climate.

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How an AI ‘shortcut’ can introduce bias for minority patients

BY MATT WOOD

“ The promise of artificial intelligence is the ability to bring accurate and rapid precision health to more people.

In order to meet the needs of the disenfranchised members of our society, however, we have to be able to develop algorithms which are competent and make relevant predictions for everyone.”

Alexander Pearson, MD, PhD

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A

rtificial intelligence tools and deep learning models are powerful tools in cancer treatment.

However, unless these algorithms are properly calibrated, they can sometimes make inaccurate or biased predictions.

A study led by researchers in the lab of Alexander Pearson, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, shows that deep learning models trained on large sets of cancer genetic and tissue histology data can easily identify the institution that submitted the images. The models, which use machine learning methods to “teach” themselves how to recognize certain cancer signatures, end up using the submitting site as a shortcut to predicting outcomes for the patient, lumping them together with other patients from the same location instead of relying on the biology of individual patients. This in turn may lead to bias and missed opportunities for treatment in patients from racial or ethnic minority groups who may be more likely to be represented in certain medical centers and already struggle with access to care.

During a biopsy, a very thin slice of the tumor is affixed to a glass slide, which is stained with multicolored dyes for review by a pathologist to make a diagnosis.

Digital images can then be created for storage and remote analysis by using a scanning microscope. While these steps are mostly standard across pathology labs, minor variations in the color or amount of stain, tissue processing techniques and the imaging equipment can create unique signatures, like tags, on each image. These location-specific signatures aren’t visible to the naked eye, but are easily detected by powerful deep-learning algorithms.

These algorithms have the potential to be valuable tools for allowing physicians to quickly analyze a tumor and guide treatment options, but the introduction

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PHOTO BY JIMMY FISHBEIN

BSD News

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Alexander Pearson, MD, PhD

of this kind of bias means that the models aren’t always basing the analysis on the biological signatures they see in the images, but rather the image artifacts generated by differences between submitting sites.

The research team found that once the models identified which institution submitted the images, they tended to use that as a stand-in for other characteristics of the image, including ancestry. This can create bias in which patients are predicted to have better or worse outcomes, based not on the biological details of the tumors or patient information, but rather based solely on which hospital produced the image.

The key to avoiding this kind of bias is to carefully consider the data used to train the models. Developers can make sure that different disease outcomes are distributed evenly across all sites used in the training data, or isolate a certain site while training or testing the model when the distribution of outcomes is unequal. The result will produce more accurate tools that can get physicians the information they need to quickly diagnose and plan treatments for cancer patients.

The study was published in July in Nature Communications.

NEUROSCIENCE

Surprise! Primates have far fewer synapses per neuron than mice

BY ALISON CALDWELL, PHD

than mice. But in a surprising finding, neuroscience researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory have discovered that mice actually have more synapses connecting the neurons in their brains.

In a study comparing the brains of macaques and mice at the synaptic level, the researchers found that the primates had far fewer synapses per neuron compared to the rodents, in both excitatory and inhibitory neurons in layer 2/3 of the primary visual cortex.

Using artificial recurrent neural network modeling, the team was further able to determine that the metabolic cost of building and maintaining synapses likely drives larger neural networks to be sparser, as seen in primates versus mouse neurons. The results were published in September in Cell Reports.

The research team, made up of scientists from the laboratories of neurobiologists David Freedman, PhD, at UChicago, and Narayanan “Bobby” Kasthuri, MD, at Argonne, leveraged recent advances in electron microscopy, as well as publicly available data sets, to compare the connectivity in both species. They chose to examine both excitatory and inhibitory synapses, as most previous research had focused on only excitatory synapses.

After reconstructing the microscopy images and measuring the shapes of 107 macaque neurons and 81 mouse neurons, the researchers identified nearly 6,000 synapses in the macaque samples and over 9,700 synapses in the mouse samples. Upon comparing the data sets, they found that primate neurons receive two to five times fewer excitatory and inhibitory synaptic connections than similar mouse neurons.

“There’s this quiet sort of assumption among neuroscientists and, I think, people in general that having more neuronal connections means that you’re smarter,” said Gregg Wildenberg, PhD, a staff scientist in the Kasthuri Lab. “This work clearly shows that while there are more total connections in the primate uchicagomedicine.org/midway

ILLUSTRATION BY SELMA CHAB, UCHICAGO CLASS OF 2023

Primates are generally considered “smarter”

brain overall because there are more neurons, if you look on a per-neuron basis, primates actually have fewer synapses. But we know that primate neurons can perform computations that mouse neurons can’t.”

After uncovering this surprising finding, Wildenberg connected with Matt Rosen, a graduate student in the Freedman Lab, hoping Rosen could bring his computational expertise to bear in better understanding the discrepancy in synapse number and its possible cause.

The modeling considered two potential metabolic costs: the cost of the individual electrical signals sent by neurons, called action potentials, which are energetically very expensive, and the cost of building and maintaining the synapses between different cells. What they found was that as the number of neurons increased in the network, growing metabolic constraints made it more difficult to create and maintain the connections between cells, leading to a reduced density of synapses.

“These fundamental observations of the anatomical differences between the two may allow us to extract general principles that can be applied across species, as well as what is unique for each animal,” Rosen said.

“ This raises interesting questions, like what are the ramifications of building a larger neuronal network, like the ones seen in primates?”

Gregg Wildenberg, PhD

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W H I T E C OAT C E R E M O N Y

Pritzker Dean’s Letter News

Class of 2025 dons white coats Members of the Pritzker School of Medicine entering Class of 2025

received their white coats in a ceremony in Friedman Hall of the new David Rubenstein Forum on the University of Chicago campus.

Trauma surgeon Brian Williams, MD, Professor of Surgery, was the keynote speaker. His message to the 90 students — entering the profession in the middle of a pandemic and a racial reckoning — is that they have the

opportunity to make the world a little better every day, even when times are challenging and progress seems slow.

Chicago being a baseball town, he likened it to hitting a single every day, rather than always swinging for a home run.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, only students and a small group of faculty and deans were present. The ceremony was streamed for family and friends, followed by an outdoor reception in the Rubenstein Forum’s Bosque Garden.

Trauma surgeon Brian Williams, MD, addresses incoming students at the White Coat ceremony.

Pritzker’s Class of 2025

36%

from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine from

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undergraduate institutions

8

UChicago undergrads

average age

72%

PHOTOS BY GRADIMAGES

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took at least one gap year

MENTORSHIP

Program exposes South Side students to careers in healthcare

H

igh school students from the South Side are learning about healthcare careers through an innovative new initiative at the University of Chicago Medicine, led by cardiologist Bryan Smith, MD’10, Assistant Professor of Medicine.

The Heart and Vascular Center (HVC) Mentorship Program connects students who are interested in healthcare with physicians, nurses, advanced practice providers, medical technicians, researchers, executives, engineers and

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other professionals through a series of workshops and activities.

On one Zoom session, heart transplant surgeon Valluvan Jeevanandam, MD, Director of the Heart and Vascular Center, led a session on suturing — using shoelaces.

The program is Jeevanandam’s brainchild. “We’re invested in ensuring our community members work in the hospital and become leaders,” said Smith.

“This will not only increase diversity, but it improves care of our patients and

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

the health of our community.”

To help launch the program, the HVC partnered with local community organizations, such as MetroSquash, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance and the Obama Foundation. There are no academic requirements; students are asked to have a sincere interest in healthcare, submit a recommendation from a non-relative and commit to participating for two years.

Fifteen juniors and seniors were selected for the program’s first

S T U D E N T AWA R D S

Students recognized for diversity, equity and inclusion leadership

Itzel López-Hinojosa, MS4

Frazer Tessema, MS2

F

ive Pritzker School of Medicine students were recognized as winners of the UChicagoGRAD Diversity Advisory Board’s (DAB) inaugural Diversity Awards, including honors for outstanding advocate and outstanding first-year.

Itzel López-Hinojosa, MS4, received the Mary S. Debose Outstanding Advocate Award, named for the longtime Chicagoarea grassroots community advocate and activist. A Pritzker chief for 2021-22, she served as co-president of the Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA), planning the LMSA annual regional conference and the Black and Latina Women in Medicine Forum, which both focused on healthcare disparities impacting Latinx communities.

As an Albert Schweitzer Fellow, she developed a curriculum for third- and

Anase Asom, MS4

Akosua Oppong, MS4

fourth-grade students that promoted healthy eating and exercise as well as an empowering mentorship curriculum for high school girls living in a majority Latinx, immigrant neighborhood.

Frazer Tessema, now MS2, won the Outstanding First-Year Award, which “recognizes that you do not have to be an upper-level student to make an impact on the community.” Fourth-year students Anase Asom, Akosua Oppong and Cody Sain were recognized as Divisional Student Awardees.

The DAB Diversity Awards are meant to recognize, honor and celebrate graduate students from underrepresented and historically marginalized backgrounds for their campus and community contributions that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

For more on their outstanding efforts, visit pritzker.uchicago.edu.

Emergency medicine physician Abdullah Pratt, MD’16, demonstrates chest compressions during one of the weekly Zoom sessions with high school students. uchicagomedicine.org/midway

cohort — all from local South Side high schools, including Kenwood Academy, Lindblom Math and Science Academy and Epic Academy.

“If these students are a barometer for kids their age, the world is going to be in a very good place,” said co-leader Aaron Manewith, administrative specialist for cardiac surgery and the mentorship program administrator. “These students are beyond impressive.”

Jada Boyd, a junior at Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, applied to the program to make connections. She also hopes to bring about

Cody Sain, MS4

Highlights of the students’ contributions include: ■ Research on the link between sickle cell trait status and trauma outcomes (Tessema) ■ Coordinating the nonpartisan “Pritzker Votes” initiative, aimed at getting 100% turnout among registered medical student voters in the 2020 election (Asom) ■ Mentoring high school students from Chicago’s South and West Sides as part of the Health Professions Recruitment and Exposure Program (HPREP), which aims to expose students to careers in medicine who might not otherwise have the opportunity (Oppong) ■ Planning a lecture on Black maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality in conjunction with the Harris School of Public Policy’s Black Action in Public Policy Studies group (Sain).

change to Black and brown communities.

“When I tell people that I want to go into the medical field they get so happy because there are not a lot of Black and brown people who look like me in medicine,” Boyd said. “I want to change that.”

Close to 20 employees have signed up as volunteer mentors, and more are interested. “Oftentimes we’re so tied up with our day-to-day activities, but these Friday afternoon sessions always leave us inspired,” Smith said. “These students have so much potential. We just want to give them a little assistance to help them realize their dreams.”

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Imagine an estate gift that doesn’t require a visit to an attorney.

Designating the University of Chicago as a beneficiary of a retirement plan, life insurance policy or financial account is just a form away.

“Because of the support offered to me and the extraordinary education provided to me, I’ve always wanted to return that support in some way.”

—Anne L. Taylor, MD’76, who designated the Pritzker School of Medicine as a beneficiary of her retirement account

Simply request a beneficiary designation form from your plan custodian, insurance agent or bank branch to name the University as a beneficiary. It’s one of the easiest ways to plan a gift and avoids or reduces estate and income taxes for beneficiaries. You remain in control of your assets during your lifetime and can change your beneficiary designation at any time.

�alt C HUNJIC TY Q RSIG THE OF VE A

I

OOffice fficeofof Gift GiftPlanning Planning

Learn more.

Visit giftplanning.uchicago.edu/beneficiary Email giftplan@uchicago.edu Call 773.702.3130 Let us know.

If you’ve already designated the University as a beneficiary, tell us and become a member of the Phoenix Society at phoenixsociety.uchicago.edu/join.

YO U R N E W S

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Doriane C. Miller, MD’83 President Chris V. Albanis, AB’96, MD’00 Immediate Past President Karyl S. Kopaskie, AB’07, PhD’14 Vice President Mark R. Aschliman, MD’80 Alumni Awards Committee Chair Sapana Vora, PhD’14 Chicago Partners Program Chair Jeanne M. Farnan, AB’98, MD’02, MHPE Editorial Committee Chair Michael Prystowsky, MD’81, PhD Regional Programs Chair ALUMNI COUNCIL

Lampis D. Anagnostopoulos, SB’57, MD’61 ✱ Juliana Basko-Plluska, AB’04, MD Jennifer “Piper” Below, PhD’11 Michael Boettcher, AB’89, MD’93 Kenneth Bridbord, MD’69, MPH Ava Ferguson Bryan, AM’10, MD’18 ✤ Courtney Burrows, PhD’15, MBA’17 Arnold Calica, SM’61, MD’75 ✱ Richard Cote, MD’80 Leonard Covello, AB’86, MD’90 Ithaar Derweesh, MD’95 Hunter Eason, MD’18 ✤ Gail M. Farfel, PhD’93 Jonathan C. Fox, AB’79, PhD’85, MD’87 Katherine M.L. Given, AB’08, PhD’13, MBA’16, MD’16 Jeffrey Goodenbour, PhD’09 Andrew Hack, AB’95, PhD’00, MD’02 Sadia Haider, AB’96, MD’01 Rajiv Jauhar, MD’91 Lucy Lester, MD’72 Daniel S. Leventhal, SM’13, PhD’16 Rosy Liao ✤ Jennifer McPartland, PhD’08 Vincent Nelson, MD’98 Loren Schechter, MD’94 Steven B. Server ✤ Coleman R. Seskind, AB’55, SB’56, MD’59, SM’59 ✱ Adhir Shroff, MD’96 Puneet Singh, MD’11 Abby Stayart, AB’97, PhD’12 Anne L. Taylor, MD’76 Cynthia Thaik, MD’90 Maimouna Traore ✤ Vishruth Venkataraman ✤ Sydney S. Yoon, MD’86 Russ Zajtchuk, SB’60, MD’63 ✱ ✱ LIFE MEMBER

✤ STUDENT OR RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVE

1950s Larry Nathanson, MD’55, received the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement award from Marquis Who’s Who. Nathanson is a professor emeritus at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, where he taught for nearly 20 years. He has made contributions to the fields of biology, combination chemotherapy and trial design. His work is documented in over 100 peer-reviewed journals. Nathanson has received numerous awards, including multiple distinguished service awards for cancer research from the Veterans Affairs review board and a historical preservation award from the Cambridge Historical Commission. He serves as the president and chief executive officer of Oncology Consultants of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1960s Donald R. Hopkins, MD’66, received an honorary doctorate of medical sciences from Yale University.

Honorary degrees are conferred by the University’s Board of Trustees to “recognize pioneering achievement or exemplary contribution to the common good.” In addition, The Carter Center Board of Trustees named a conference room in his honor. Hopkins served as senior consultant for health programs at The Carter Center, leading its efforts to eradicate Guinea worm disease and river blindness. He is a past recipient of the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award (formerly Distinguished Service Award).

1970s William E. Truog, MD’73, retired after 20 years as the Sosland Family Endowed Chair in Neonatology Research at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2019, Truog received the Carleton College Alumni Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award.

1990s Allison August, MD’93, was a keynote speaker at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Chicago Immunoengineering Innovation Center Conference in June 2021. August is the vice president of clinical development and infectious disease at Moderna.

Melina R. Kibbe, AB’90, MD’94, was named dean and chief health affairs officer at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine and chief health affairs officer at UVA Health.

Previously, Kibbe was the Colin G. Thomas Jr. Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. She is the first woman to serve as the chair of the Department of Surgery at UNC and is an advocate for gender equity in medicine. Kibbe is a past recipient of the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award (formerly Distinguished Service Award).

Pringl Miller, MD’97, is the founder and executive director of Physician Just Equity, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation centered on supporting physicians and surgeons navigating bias, harassment, discrimination and retaliation in the workplace and seeking institutional change.

2000s Matthew Vander Heiden, SB’94, PhD’00, MD’02, was named the next director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. The Koch Institute brings scientists and engineers from different disciplines together to work on cancerrelated problems. Vander Heiden is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology biology professor and pioneer in the field of cancer cell metabolism. He

joined the Koch Institute in 2010 and has been an associate director since 2017. As Vander Heiden steps into his new role, he plans to continue working as a medical oncologist at the DanaFarber Cancer Institute, where he treats prostate cancer patients.

Your News

2021–2022 ALUMNI COUNCIL

Benjamin Kyle Potter, MD’01, was selected to chair the Department of Surgery at the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine of the Uniformed Services University (USU). Potter is the director of surgery and the chief orthopedic surgeon for the Amputee Program at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, as well as a musculoskeletal oncology consultant at Walter Reed and the National Institutes of Health. He was selected as the orthopedic surgery consultant to the U.S. Army Surgeon General in March 2019. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and again in 2016, serving as the chief orthopedic surgeon of the Task Force 115 Combat Support Hospital (Role III). In 2020, he deployed to Kuwait as the senior theater orthopedic surgeon. In 2021, Potter received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association.

2010s Asima Ahmad, AB’04, MD’10, was named one of the 30 leaders under 40 who are transforming the healthcare industry in 2021 by Business Insider.

Ahmad is the co-founder and chief medical officer at Carrot Fertility.

We want to hear from you!

YO U R L E T T E R S Is there a story in this issue that inspires you to comment? Do you have a memory or reflection to share? Medicine on the Midway is open for feedback. Letters must be signed and may be edited for AP style, space, clarity and civility. To provide a range of views and voices, we encourage letter writers to limit themselves to 300 words or fewer. While the staff works remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, please send letters via email: momedit@uchospitals.edu.

YO U R N E WS Share news about your life and accomplishments: mbsaa.uchicago.edu/update-contact-info

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In Memoriam

IN MEMORIAM 1950s Shamay Cotev, MD’57, died on January 6, 2021. Cotev was head of the intensive care unit (ICU) at the Hadassah University in Jerusalem, Israel. He was the Teachers’ Research founder of ICU anesthesia. He was instrumental in introducing epidural procedures, and was dedicated to the training and mentoring of future medical professionals in his field, always insisting on excellence and emphasizing the importance of the patient-doctor relationship. Cotev is survived by his wife, Edna.

David Kistner, AB’52, SB’56, PhD’57, died on March 10, 2021. Kistner taught biology at California State University, Chico (CSUC), for over 30 years. At CSUC, he received several Outstanding Professor honors and the systemwide Outstanding Professor Award.

He collected and named hundreds of insect genera and species during his lifelong fascination with insects, and was known as an authority on the taxonomy of insects that live with

termites and ants. He received 15 National Science Foundation grants for his taxonomic research. He authored and co-authored over 200 scientific papers. Kistner also consulted for the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Fish and Game. Kistner is survived by his brother, Dick; sister, Anita; daughters, Alzada and Kymry; and his two grandchildren.

1960s Stephen H. Koslow, PhD’67, died on April 23, 2021. Koslow had a 35-year career as a federal civil servant and senior executive with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Maryland. He led the establishment of the neuroscience program at the NIH and created the Human Brain Project (HBP). The HBP included the development of data-sharing platforms for neuroscience, known as neuroinformatics, and was recognized by President Barack

Obama as the framework for international collaboration and data sharing that would support a better understanding of the brain. After retiring from the federal government, Koslow continued to work in the field of neuroscience. Most recently, he consulted at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and at Louisiana State University mentoring young researchers. In 2017, he received the Distinguished Service Award (now Distinguished Alumni Award) from the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association. Koslow is survived by his partner, Nancy Levin; his former spouse of 46 years, Diane Koslow; his children, Karin and Jamie; his grandchildren; and his sister, Virginia Wasserman.

2010s Brooke Peterson Gabster, MD’18, died on September 11, 2021. During her time at the Pritzker School of Medicine, Gabster was a Bucksbaum

Institute Student Scholar and member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, gained medical experience in Ghana and helped start a program to improve patient-centered interprofessional clinical collaboration.

Gabster pursued a residency in internal medicine, matching with the Global Health track at Stanford University. She aimed to improve cancer care in developing countries and had plans to work in Uganda when she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in February 2019. After her diagnosis, Gabster researched advancement in treatment of her own disease and published a piece in JAMA on her experience. She worked as a clinician part time, analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on female academics and delivered Grand Rounds at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Gabster is survived by her husband, Steve; her sister; her parents; and many more family members.

REUNION

Mark your calendar!

May 20-21, 2022 2022 Pritzker School of Medicine Reunion All medical alumni are invited back to campus to enjoy the Pritzker Reunion. Members of the following classes will celebrate a milestone Reunion this year: 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017.

First Annual Biological Sciences Division Reunion All graduate alumni of the Biological Sciences Division are invited to the first BSD Reunion. Alumni will enjoy programs in downtown Chicago and on campus and also can participate in the events of UChicago Alumni Weekend (May 19-22, 2022).

Learn more about the BSD and Pritzker Reunions at mbsaa.uchicago.edu/reunion or follow @UChicagoMBSAA on Facebook and Twitter.

PHOTO BY JOEL WINTERMANTLE

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Please note: University event policies and recommendations are continuing to change as needed. These events are compliant with current University guidelines; however, we will notify you if current guidelines change closer to the event date.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

Emeritus faculty

Frank Fitch, MD’53, SM’57, PhD’60

F

PHOTO BY ROBERT KOZLOFF

rank Fitch, MD’53, SM’57, PhD’60, conducted research that led to new cancer treatments, co-founded the Committee on Immunology at the University of Chicago and served as president of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI). But he always considered his biggest accomplishment to be the 35 MD and PhD students and seven postdoctoral fellows who trained in his lab.

“He ran the laboratory more or less like an artist colony, his philosophy being that if you assemble a group of smart and motivated people in the same room and provided them resources, that something interesting and novel would eventually emerge,” wrote Thomas Gajewski, AB’84, PhD’89, MD’91, AbbVie Foundation Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology, Ben May Department for Cancer Research, and Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago, in a tribute to Fitch. “His job was to secure funding and then tweak your thinking and direction based on his experience and wisdom. And when he presented your work as part of a big talk at a major conference, he fully acknowledged you as the driver of the project. All of these practices converged to generate inspiration toward becoming a scientist.”

Fitch, the Albert D. Lasker Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pathology and the Ben May Department for Cancer Research, died at his home in Chicago on April 2, 2021, leaving a legacy of leadership in education, research and administration. He was 91.

He arrived on campus as a 20-year-old medical student in 1949, became a faculty member in 1957, and stayed until he retired and became professor emeritus in 1996. As a researcher, he helped develop the first monoclonal antibodies for breast cancer diagnosis and pioneered cloning of T cells, leading early efforts to distinguish different types of T cells. With the late immunologist Donald Rowley, SB’45, SM’50, MD’50, he helped advance understanding of passive immunization, showing that the procedure repressed a patient’s native immune response and helped combat organ rejection in transplant

Frank W. Fitch, MD, PhD, looks over memorabilia from his career at the University of Chicago. The 2015 photo was taken in his Hyde Park home.

uchicagomedicine.org/midway

recipients. His immunology research led to new treatments of Rh disease, new techniques for T cell cloning and advancements in monoclonal antibody techniques that are now the standard of care for immunotherapy treatment of multiple cancers, including breast cancer.

He was generous in crediting students and created an atmosphere in the lab that emphasized selfdiscovery, high expectations and collegiality. On Fridays, Fitch and his wife, Shirley, hosted beer-and-pretzel sessions — with cider for non-drinkers — in their Hyde Park home. “Over the years, people would bring guitars,” Fitch said in 2015. “At Halloween, we’d have pumpkin-carving contests.” His former students remembered him as a tireless mentor — both inside and outside the lab. “Frank taught me what loyalty, honesty and integrity are all about,” said Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD, A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor in Metabolism and Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, in a 2015 Medicine on the Midway story. “He was the first to acknowledge others. He’d highlight his students in every setting and say he was only the conductor; they were the orchestra making the music.”

Fitch co-founded the Committee on Immunology, which established a degree-granting program in immunology at the University. In 1982, he was appointed director of the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer Research. He also served as chair of the curriculum committee and as associate dean of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. A leading member of the immunology community, he served as president of the AAI, on the AAI council, and as president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Following his retirement from the University in 1996, he was editor-in-chief of The Journal of Immunology from 1997 to 2002. He was elected an AAI Distinguished Fellow in 2019.

Several years ago, Fitch said that over the years he received offers from other institutions, but “consciously chose to remain at the University because of the quality of the students and faculty and the emphasis on scholarship.” He added, “I can’t put it very well into words,” he said, “but I am what I am because I have been at the University of Chicago.”

In 2014, 69 individuals and organizations — including past and present faculty and alumni — raised more than $100,000 to establish the annual Frank W. and Shirley D. Fitch Lecture at the University of Chicago in honor of his legacy in education.

In a 2012 interview for the AAI, Fitch was asked what advice he would give to potential trainees in immunology. “Think broadly,” he said. “There are lots of ways to do immunology. What do you find most fun? Because if you aren’t having fun, it ain’t worth it.”

Fitch was preceded in death by his wife of 65 years, Shirley Dobbins Fitch. He is survived by his brother, Robert Fitch; his children, Peggy (Jonathan B., MD) Rubenstein and Mark W. Fitch; and his grandchildren, Emily (Eric) Rubenstein Dropkin, Daniel (Emily Rus) Fitch Rubenstein and Benjamin Frank Rubenstein.

“Those of us who were close to him will miss his intellect, his dry sense of humor, his humility, his career support and his character.”

Thomas Gajewski, AB’84, PhD’89, MD’91 AbbVie Foundation Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy

“Frank Fitch made a difference in this world, a difference in peoples’ lives and a difference in our understanding of immunology. He left a legacy of profound gentility and grace. As Bob Rich, former editor-in-chief of The Journal of Immunology, said after

learning about Frank’s passing, ‘Every discipline has but a few GIANTS. Frank was one of ours!’”

Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD Arthur Weiss, PhD’78, MD’79 University of California, San Francisco (Remembrance for the American Association of Immunologists)

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L A S T LO O K

Particle art Lindsay Olson’s Particle Soup is from her portfolio of work produced as the first Artist-in-Residence with Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (2015). The program, now in its seventh year, connects physics and art. The artist describes the work: “I used dyed textiles, embroidery and other techniques to express the elegance of the Standard Model of Particle Physics … a breathtakingly successful conceptual tool we use to explain our universe.”

PARTICLE SOUP BY LINDSAY OLSON/ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE FERMILAB 2015; PHOTO BY REIDAR HAHN/FERMILAB