the
WOMEN’S ISSUE
DR. MELINA KIBBE Chair, Department of Surgery at UNC School of Medicine
Melina Kibbe is the Zach D. Owens Distinguished Professor at the UNC School of Medicine. She received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from Barack Obama in 2010 and was recently elected to the National Academy of Medicine – one of the highest honors in the field. Melina lives with her husband, Marco Patti, just minutes from the UNC campus. They moved to Chapel Hill in June 2016, and love walking the Battle Park trails that abut their home, as well as watching deer, fox, squirrels and snakes cruising through their backyard.
What led you to become a surgeon? A couple of pivotal events shaped me and one of them was that they checked my back when I was 14 and discovered I had scoliosis and required surgery. I thought what my surgeon did was amazing. I wanted to be just like him – the kind of person who could come and fix a problem. What led you to UNC? I said no at first to this position at UNC, because I saw that the previous four chairs were older, male clinicians. [As a researcher and younger woman,] I didn’t feel aligned with that. But a very persistent search committee member convinced me that UNC wanted a change. I fell in love with the place and the people, and I feel very much aligned with the mission and the vision. What drives your research interests? I want to make a difference. I hope to have impact through caring for patients, working on something in the lab that hopefully makes it back to patient care and educating other physicians and researchers. What do you try to instill in those learning from you? My No. 1 recommendation is to follow your passion. If you pursue what you’re passionate about, it’s going to work out. If you don’t, well, you might wake up every morning and not feel that excited. Follow your passion and don’t worry so much about the rest. With all your commitments, how do you find balance? You might look at me and think, ‘she works too much.’ But I have the work/life balance that I want. I’m doing what I love to do, and I love my career as a surgeon and a scientist and as someone who’s helping educate the next generation. –JB
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chapelhillmagazine.com April 2017