women’s the
issue
Healer-in-Chief
Dr. Ann Reed Physician-in-Chief, Duke Children’s Hospital and Chair of the Pediatrics Department at Duke University School of Medicine Ann first moved to Durham with her husband, Duke physician Dr. John Paat, in 1990. About a decade later, they moved to Minnesota, where Ann became the chair of the pediatrics department at the Mayo Clinic. John returned to Duke in the early 2010s, and Ann followed in 2014 after she was hired as the chair of the school’s pediatrics department. The couple has three children: Lauren, who works in advertising in Chicago; Joseph, a mathematician in Zurich; and Anthony, a Tucson-based astrophysicist.
“O
NE OF THE THINGS that I love about children is that they just want to be normal and well and healthy,” says Ann, a pediatric rheumatologist and immunologist by training. “They want to go play, they want to go to school, they want to sing songs.” While many adults get caught up in being unwell and it drags them down, Ann says kids look on the bright side of their situations. “They’re not complaining,” she says. “They’ve got the smile and energy around them. In children, a disease doesn’t define them. I believe that’s the way you should look at life.” One of her most meaningful experiences as a physician was when she treated a young man who was an avid athlete but became so weak he could hardly swallow. By the time he got to Ann at the Mayo Clinic, he had seen dozens of physicians who thought his condition was either behavioral or the result of a brain tumor, and no one could offer a solution. “He thought his life was over,” Ann says. As soon as she saw him, Ann recognized that he was suffering from a muscle condition and started him on treatments. Six months later, he sent her a photo of him carrying his girlfriend into prom. “I still get Christmas cards from his family every year,” Ann says. “To be able to help somebody move through that is so memorable.” – Holly West
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