36 minute read
Faculty News
Appointments, Honors & Awards
Metcalf Winner Fadie Coleman paves the path to STEM degrees for underrepresented and working students
Teaching her first class last fall at the School of Medicine, postdoctoral associate Marianne Collard naturally had beginner’s jitters. But in Fadie Coleman, Collard found a mentor who’d taught students from college to middle and high school—and was only too happy to teach a fellow teacher.
“I met with Dr. Coleman weekly, where she helped me refine my syllabus, plan class lessons, and evaluate students’ learning, providing guidance that was exceptional,” Collard wrote in a letter nominating Coleman (CAS’97, MED’16), assistant professor of medical sciences and education, for a 2021 Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching, one of Boston University’s highest teaching honors.
“Perhaps Dr. Coleman’s most admirable quality,” Collard wrote, “is her advocacy for diversity and equality. As a person of color herself, Dr. Coleman understands and empathizes with struggles minority students face, which comprise the majority of the BLCS program.”
BLCS is the Biomedical Laboratory & Clinical Sciences Program, a collaboration between BUSM and Metropolitan College, which offers evening classes for working students seeking bachelor’s degrees in biotechnology. It’s a gateway to STEM education—perhaps the only one—for underrepresented minorities and nontraditional students.
That’s a point of pride for Coleman, who became the program’s director on joining BUSM in 2017 and knows firsthand the value of such gateways. Growing up in New Jersey without professional role models, she says that “picturing myself as a scientist did not become a reality until I met encouraging mentors, who treated me like a scientist from the very first day” at BU. A University summer internship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital exposed her to medical research. based on statements of nominees’ teaching philosophy, supporting letters from colleagues and students, and classroom observations of the nominees. n
Elizabeth Hutton Receives Stanley L. Robbins Award for Excellence in Teaching
Elizabeth Hutton, MD, assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics, has been recognized with BUSM’s highest teaching honor, the Stanley L. Robbins Award for Excellence in Teaching.
The annual award honors an outstanding educator and acknowledges the importance of teaching skills and commitment to students and education. It was established in recognition of the exceptional teaching and devotion to students exemplified by Stanley L. Robbins, MD, former professor and chair of pathology.
“Dr. Hutton is simply superb as an educator and at giving feedback,” said a BUSM colleague. “Students routinely tell me that she gives them the most detailed, specific, and actionable feedback. In addition, she is a strong advocate for our students. Whether a struggling student on service or one who excels, Dr. Hutton finds ways to support those who need help and makes time in her busy schedule to independently reach out to residency programs on behalf of applicants so that they can achieve their residency program aspirations.”
Another colleague describes Hutton as demonstrating characteristics all educators should strive for—a thorough engagement in student learning, a clear sense of student expectations, the ability to provide specific feedback to learners, and a willingness to create and enact an action plan to help them improve. “Her ability to identify struggling learners in a timely fashion—and report it to course leadership along with an action plan to help that learner improve—has been invaluable in assisting our students to meet their expectations.”
Senior year, she completed a career counseling survey “out of pure curiosity” and discovered a second passion: teaching. Upon graduating, she taught science in several Boston-area communities—chemistry and physical science in middle school; biology, physical science, and laboratory research in high school—and those years inform her university instruction.
“My experiences working with younger students help me to quickly assess where students are,” Coleman says, “and develop effective teaching strategies for introducing new material, reinforcing content knowledge, and encouraging critical thought at appropriate levels.” She learned another valuable lesson: “to reassure my students with great confidence that they can do the work. I love engaging with the range of students that I work with because it keeps me from forgetting what it was like to be in their shoes.”
During her directorship, the BLCS has awarded 59 bachelor of science degrees, with another 21 anticipated for this year.
“Dr. Coleman redesigned the BLCS curriculum by integrating updated laboratory techniques, scientific writings, and streamlining the internship programs,” her department chair, Hee-Young Park, professor of medical sciences and education, wrote in her recommendation letter to the University’s Teaching Awards Committee. “The redesigned curriculum was well received by the students and she received positive evaluations from the students.”
She also taught four BLCS courses herself in each semester this academic year.
In addition to her BU degrees, Coleman earned a master’s from Harvard.
A gift from the late Arthur G. B. Metcalf (Wheelock’35, Hon.’74), a BU Board of Trustees chair emeritus and former professor, funds the Metcalf Cup and Prize and the Metcalf Awards for Excellence in Teaching, created in 1973 as the University’s highest teaching awards. The cup and prize winner receives $10,000; the award winners, $5,000 each. A University committee selects winners
Hutton serves as the medical director of the pediatric inpatient unit at Boston Medical Center. According to a colleague, she is attentive to educational concerns from an administrative level in her role running the inpatient service. “Over the years she has innovated ways in which hospitalist faculty can contribute to education and has routinely gone above and beyond in her consideration for how to set up a service that can really assess the competency of medical students,” another colleague said.
Hutton’s research interests include medical education, quality improvement in inpatient pediatric care, faculty development, improving coordination of care between inpatient and outpatient providers, and childhood onset chronic disease.
She completed her medicine-pediatrics residency program at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital. n
Sandra Looby-Gordon Receives Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award
Sandra Looby-Gordon, MD, is the recipient of the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, presented by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation to faculty who best demonstrate the foundation’s ideals of outstanding compassion in the delivery of care; respect for patients, their families, and healthcare colleagues; and clinical excellence.
A clinical associate professor of medicine who has served on the faculty since 1992, Looby-Gordon is a primary care provider who also treats complex patients with substance use disorders. She is known for her empathy toward patients and colleagues and for being a role model for her trainees to whom she teaches primary care, inpatient general medicine, addiction medicine, and culturally competent care. In her own words, her goal is to provide excellent care with compassion and respect, regardless of her patients’ zip codes.
Admired and appreciated by her colleagues, patients, and medical students alike, Looby-Gordon embodies compassion and empathy as a caregiver and approaches teaching with sensitivity and openness. A nurse colleague said, “She’s an incredible human being and always treats her coworkers and patients with dignity and respect. She goes above and beyond for her patients and is very knowledgeable, patient, and kind.”
A physician colleague said, “I love having the opportunity to precept residents with her or participate in a case conference with her. Being in her presence, you always feel the warmth and caring for the patients, her trainees, and her colleagues.”
Evaluations from medical students and residents demonstrate her superlative personal and professional skills. Their comments have included, “Dr. Looby-Gordon was a pleasure to learn from as she instantly made students feel at ease and capable of performing their clinical duties without fear”; “I felt she valued my opinions and thoughts on rounds”; and “Very caring about the patients, always addressing their social determinants of health as well.” A patient wrote, “She has been my doctor for almost 20 years. She is friendly and easy to talk with about problems.”
A public, nonprofit organization founded by Drs. Arnold and Sandra Gold to perpetuate the tradition of the caring doctor by emphasizing the importance of the relationship between the practitioner and the patient, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation’s objective is to help physicians-in-training become doctors who combine the high-tech skills of cutting-edge medicine with the high-touch skills of effective communication, empathy, and compassion. n
Christian Arbelaez Appointed Chief, Chair of Emergency Medicine
Christian Arbelaez, MD, MPH, has been named the Department of Emergency Medicine chief at Boston Medical Center and chair at Boston University School of Medicine.
Arbelaez previously served as vice chair of Academic Affairs and associate professor of emergency medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University with appointments at Rhode Island, Hasbro Children’s, and The Miriam & Newport hospitals.
Arbelaez completed his medical degree at University of Texas Medical Branch, an emergency medicine residency at Brown University/Rhode Island Hospital, and fellowships at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (minority health policy) and American College of Emergency Physicians (teaching).
An innovative leader and expert in emergency care delivery systems and public health and policy, Arbelaez has given more than 100 presentations and authored more than 70 publications during his 20-year academic career. His strong clinical leadership and track record developing faculty will advance the mission of the academic medical center and the effectiveness of the Emergency Medicine Department.
Special thanks to Jon Olshaker, MD, who served as chief and chair of the Emergency Medicine Department for the past 19 years and last year announced his plans to step down from his leadership role once a successor was named. Olshaker has made many lasting contributions to the Emergency Medicine Department, including establishing programs and interventions that have become national models for advocacy, research, and teaching. n
Tuhina Neogi Named Alan S. Cohen Professor of Rheumatology
Tuhina Neogi, MD, PhD, was named the Alan S. Cohen Professor of Rheumatology on February 17 as her colleagues, friends, and family gathered virtually to witness the installation and celebrate her work in rheumatology.
Neogi is section chief of rheumatology and professor of medicine at BUSM, professor of epidemiology at SPH, chief of rheumatology at Boston Medical Center, and an investigator at the Framingham Heart Study. She received her MD from the University of Toronto and PhD from Boston University School of Public Health.
This professorship honors the late Dr. Cohen, who graduated from BUSM in 1953, trained at Boston City Hospital, and in 1960 established the first BUSM arthritis section. He served in various leadership roles until his retirement in 1998.
BUSM Dean Karen Antman, MD, kicked off the virtual event. “Installations are joyous academic events that celebrate two Boston University School of Medicine professors, one historic and the other a new, younger, outstanding professor,” she said.
David Coleman, MD, FAACP, Wade Professor and chair of medicine at BUSM, then introduced Neogi.
“Her many, many accomplishments are filled with descriptions of honors from a number of local and national service organizations, where she has been involved in setting the standards of care and treatment for patients with rheumatic diseases, and in particular with osteoarthritis and gout,” said Coleman. “It is in these two areas, osteoarthritis and gout, where she is known throughout the world for the clarity of her thinking and ability to bring methodological rigor to the important studies of these conditions.”
He added that Neogi has played a critical role in establishing career development programs and increasing efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion on the Medical Campus.
“She may be small, but she is mighty. Tuhina is an influencer; she is a key informant; she is a respected expert in our field,” said Gillian Hawker, MD, MSc, the Sir John and Lady Eaton Professor and chair of medicine at the University of Toronto and an
This professorship was made possible thanks to support from the Department of Medicine and a generous bequest from Drs. Barbara and Richard F. Corkey.
Ravid, professor of medicine, biochemistry, and biology, is the founding director of the Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research and of the BU Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Office, and the director of the Master of Science Program in Biomedical Research. She also is a member of the BU-BMC Cancer Center, Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute, and Genome Science Institute.
BUSM Dean Karen Antman, MD, delivered the opening remarks. “The installation of a new professorship is one of the most joyous occasions in academia, perhaps second only to graduation,” she said. “Professorships both honor the distinguished faculty member named, and also the outstanding faculty member who will be supported by this professorship.”
This professorship honors Corkey, professor emerita of medicine, who served as the Zoltan Kohn Professor of Medicine and vice chair for research in the department of medicine. She has been a leader in the fields of diabetes and obesity research for more than 50 years, with 190 related publications and 40 years of continuous federal research support.
David Coleman, MD, FAACP, Wade Professor and chair of medicine, introduced Drs. Corkey and Ravid to the virtual crowd.
“Today we are celebrating science and discovery. We are celebrating mentorship and role models, and we are celebrating two incredibly important women scientists,” he said.
Coleman mentioned that he had the pleasure of working with Corkey in her role as vice chair of research, a position she held for 12 years. “Through her energy and insights, she
internationally recognized leader in osteoarthritis research.
David Felson, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at BUSM and professor of epidemiology at SPH, a thought leader in the field of rheumatology, spoke to the importance of Neogi’s work in osteoarthritis. “It’s a big public health problem,” he said. “Throughout the world, it is one of the major causes of disability that we’re grappling with.”
He noted the considerable influence of her work, which has refocused the field of osteoarthritis on what causes pain and why patients seek care.
“That’s what matters to patients, and what we need to treat,” said Felson. “The NIH has recognized a lot of this work and has awarded Tuhina three RO1 [grants] in the last year to pursue this investigative work.”
Felson said Neogi has also been a major force in the treatment of gout, spearheading efforts to encourage more comprehensive and aggressive treatment, leading guidelines committees, and writing reviews of gout management in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In thanking her many colleagues and supporters, Neogi said, “I went and got a Kleenex just before I came into the room—and sure enough, I’ve gotten teary-eyed.”
Her family congratulated her, including cousins tuning in from India and her aunt and uncle from the West Coast. Her in-laws and other family members shared their joy in her achievements.
“Tuhina really embodies the role of being a caregiver but also a thought leader, a researcher, and an all-encompassing practitioner,” said her husband, Scott.
A cousin, recalling the time her 14-year-old son needed neck surgery, recounted how the family consulted Neogi, who worked her way through a thorough differential diagnosis.
“Her questions were so insightful and prompted a process that led everybody, including the surgeons, to think about it more deeply and approach the case in a way that ultimately led to a successful surgery,” she said. n
Katya Ravid Installed as Barbara E. Corkey Professor of Medicine
Katya Ravid, DSc, was installed on May 20 as the Barbara E. Corkey, PhD, Professor of Medicine in a virtual ceremony witnessed by colleagues, friends, and family.
really revolutionized the role in our department. It was through her efforts that new initiatives to support our faculty and new research programs arose.”
Ravid is known for seminal discoveries in the field of megakaryocyte and platelet biology. As a recognized leader in this field, she has received awards from and has been recognized by national and international societies, including the American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the French National Research Agency, University of Sydney Professorship Award, Weizmann Institute Visiting Professorship Award, the Fulbright Research Scholar Award, and three BUSM mentoring and teaching awards. She currently serves as president of the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences.
“What is not captured in all of these awards is how generous she is with her time, with her insight, and the degree to which she cares about all members of her community,” Coleman said of Ravid.
Mark Prentki, PhD, professor of nutrition, biochemistry, and molecular medicine at Université de Montréal, and Joseph E. Italiano Jr, PhD, associate professor of Harvard Medical School and founder of Platelet Biogenesis, spoke about the work and legacy of Corkey and Ravid, respectively.
Corkey shared her gratitude for her family, friends, and colleagues, as well as her admiration of Ravid’s intellectual and leadership abilities.
“I would like to express my great pleasure in the selection of Katya Ravid as the incumbent chair in my name,” she said. “Your intelligence, focus, spirit of collegiality, and inclusiveness personifies good leadership.”
Three of Ravid’s former trainees took to the virtual podium to share their mentorship experiences. Cynthia St. Hilaire, PhD, associate professor of medicine at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Hao Nguyen, MD, PhD, who holds an endowed associate professorship at the University of California San Francisco, and Milka Koupenova, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at University of Massachusetts Medical School, all spoke graciously and passionately about the impact of Ravid’s mentoring and teaching on their academic careers.
Ravid addressed the group, noting that most faculty members do not have the pleasure of knowing the person whose name they carry as an endowed chair, and her unique position in being able to thank and congratulate Corkey personally.
She described her recruitment to BU, thanked family members, recognized BU faculty and trainees with whom she collaborated or had mentored, and told the group, “Rewarding science is born out not only of courage, creativity, and tenacity, but out of generosity as well.”
Ravid’s family and friends joined the Zoom meeting to celebrate her accomplishment.
“My mom has always shared her curiosity with us, and moreover, taught us how we might use that curiosity to better understand ourselves and the world around us, like a true scientist,” said her daughter, Noga Ravid.
Another trainee of Ravid’s, Shannon Carroll, said, “I cannot express how grateful I am for my time in the Ravid Lab and at BU, and for all I learned about not only science, but also myself.” n
Emelia Benjamin Promoted to Associate Provost, BUMC Faculty Development
Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, FACC, FAHA, professor of medicine and epidemiology at BUSM and BUSPH and a clinical cardiologist at BMC, has been promoted from assistant to associate provost, BUMC Faculty Development.
Benjamin is deeply engaged in the professional development of healthcare professionals and has a fundamental commitment to mentoring minority and underrepresented early-career, mid-career, and established investigators in epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, and academic health sciences. She was appointed assistant provost for Faculty Development in 2015. Benjamin has codeveloped and led faculty development efforts on the Medical Campus with her colleagues at GSDM, BUSPH, and BUSM over the last 11 years, during which time more than 560 faculty members have participated in the various programs. In addition, she has conducted more than 600 faculty career consultations since 2015. She currently serves as primary mentor or coprimary mentor on seven NIH Ks.
Benjamin is a coprincipal investigator of the Framingham Heart Study core contract, and principal investigator or multiprincipal investigator of 11 RO1s since 1998, including an MPI grant on the genetics of atrial fibrillation. She has published more than 620 original research articles and is listed on the Thomson Reuters List of Highly Cited Researchers (top one percent) in medicine.
She has received multiple honors, including the 2020 Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award, the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Paul Dudley White Award, the AHA Women in Cardiology Mentoring Award, the AHA Functional Genomics and Translational Biology Mentoring Award, the 2020 Boston Medical Center Jerome Klein Award for Physician Excellence, and the Department of Medicine mentoring and inpatient teaching awards. This year, Benjamin is being inducted into the Association of American Physicians. n
Robert Lowe Named Assistant Dean for Medical Education
Robert Lowe, MD has been named assistant dean of Medical Education for Clinical Integration. An associate professor of medicine at BUSM, Lowe is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and completed his residency and chief residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Lowe has been heavily involved in multiple aspects of the educational programs at BUSM and Boston Medical Center (BMC) since arriving in 2001. He is codirector of the second-year pathophysiology course, Disease and Therapy (DRx), as well as an associate clerkship director in the third-year Internal Medicine Clerkship. He is also a member of the Academy of Medical Educators Program, teaches first- and second-year students in doctoring, and advises students across the four years. He is director of the Medical Education Pathway for the BMC Internal Medicine Residency Program and a key faculty member in the Department of Medicine, attending frequently on the medicine wards and running educational conferences for house staff.
Lowe is active in curriculum development for medical students, house officers, and fellows, with special interest in the teaching of clinical reasoning skills and fostering professionalism among medical trainees. He has received numerous teaching awards, including BUSM’s Stanley Robbins Award, BU’s Metcalf Award, and the Grant V. Rodkey Award for Outstanding Contributions to Medical Education from the Massachusetts Medical Society.
In his new role, Dr. Lowe will focus primarily on the integration of foundational and clinical science across the four-year MD curriculum. He will be designing and implementing a new case-based integrated portion of the curriculum that will begin in 2022. n
David Atkinson Announces Plans to Step Down as Chair of Physiology & Biophysics
After 45 years at BUSM and 15 as chair of the Department of Physiology & Biophysics, David Atkinson, PhD, has announced his plans to step down as chair to concentrate on his research program and teaching as a member of the faculty.
Atkinson received his BS in physics with honors, with specialization in X-ray crystallography, from the City, University of London and his PhD in biophysics from the Council for National Academic Awards in the UK. He was recruited to BUSM in 1975, joining what, at that time, was the Biophysics Institute. He helped transform the institute to departmental status and interim of the Department of Physiology & Biophysics, effective July 1. Lehman succeeded David Atkinson, PhD, who stepped down as chair at the end of June.
Lehman received his doctorate in biology from Princeton University. He completed postdoctoral training in muscle biochemistry and biophysics at Brandeis University and was a Unilever Fellow at Oxford University before joining the BUMC community in 1973 as an assistant professor in the former Department of Physiology.
Lehman’s research focuses on the assembly and function of actin-containing thin filaments in muscle and nonmuscle cells in order to elucidate mechanisms of calcium regulation of muscle contraction and to better understand cytoskeletal remodeling. He applies a combination of molecular biology, cryo-electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and computational modeling to define the interactions and dynamics of protein components of normal and mutant actin filaments, in particular those leading to cardiomyopathies.
Continuously funded by the NIH for more than 25 years, which included Shannon and MERIT awards, his work has led to fundamental understanding of troponintropomyosin-based calcium regulation of muscle contraction and its dysfunction during disease. Lehman’s work is internationally recognized for its excellence, and he has been an invited speaker and chair at symposia multiple times in Europe and the UK.
Lehman has served in several roles within the department, including as course director for the dental and OHS physiology courses, as well as a member of a number of departmental committees. He also has served on several University committees, including the Committee on Basic Life Sciences and the Appeals Committee for Promotions in the Seven-Year Medical Student program. Lehman has received the first Faculty Recognition Award for Educational Innovation and a Spencer N. Frankl Award for Excellence in Teaching, both from the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine. Lehman is an editor of the Journal of Muscle Research and Cell Motility and the journal Biology. He has been a reviewer for the NIH and other funding agencies both nationally and internationally. n
establish a graduate PhD program in biophysics in 1988, and was key to the merger with the physiology department to form the Department of Physiology & Biophysics in 2000. He has served as chair since 2005.
Atkinson is internationally recognized for his research to understand, at a molecular and structural level, the formation and function of the plasma lipoproteins that play a central role in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease, particularly low-density lipoprotein (“bad cholesterol”) and highdensity lipoprotein (“good cholesterol”). His research was continuously funded for more than 30 years through an NIH National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Program Project “Structural and Cell Biology of Cardiovascular Disease,” in which he directed a component project and a structural biology core; he led the program project for more than 10 years. Subsequently, he has continued his research through an independent research grant. Atkinson was a visiting scholar, Division of Structural Studies, Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England in 1987–1988.
Atkinson has served on a variety of scientific, administrative, and advisory committees at international, national, industry, university, and medical school levels, including a fouryear term as a member of the parent Program Project Review Committee, NHLBI.
He teaches in many varied disciplines in PhD, MS, MD, and DMD programs, including macromolecular structure and function, molecular biophysics, lipid, lipoprotein and membrane biochemistry, and hepatic and pancreatic physiology and endocrinology. He received the Excellence in Teaching in the Basic Sciences award, Boston University Goldman School of Dental Medicine, in 2008. He has mentored more than 25 PhD students and postdoctoral fellows and numerous students in the University and school’s outreach and diversity programs such as Undergraduate Research, RISE, STaRS, and EMSSP. n
William Lehman, PhD, Appointed Chair ad interim of Physiology & Biophysics
William Lehman, PhD, Professor of Physiology & Biophysics, was appointed chair ad
LaKedra Pam Puts Her Passion for Trivia to Good Use
OB-GYN, and two-time Jeopardy! winner, now stars on GSN’s Master Minds
She’s the lady with all the answers: LaKedra Pam, a School of Medicine assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, has made a side career out of her passion for trivia. These days, she stars on the Game Show Network’s Master Minds.
“My family is much more excited about my game show life than my OB-GYN life,” says says Pam, who is moonlighting as a game show contestant and personality. “They don’t get to see me do C-sections, but seeing me on TV is really exciting for them!” Pam is currently a cast member of the Game Show Network series Master Minds, where challengers compete to win $10,000 by knowing more than each other and resident experts like Pam and Ken Jennings (best known for amassing more than $4.5 million from his appearances on Jeopardy!).
And speaking of Jennings: this isn’t Pam’s first trivia rodeo. She is also a two-time Jeopardy! champ—she appeared on three episodes in December 2017, took home just under $35,000 (“I bought a car!” she says), and had the honor of being deemed a “trivia buzz saw” by the late, great Alex Trebek. Her Jeopardy! wins are what led her to this latest show: as a Jeopardy! alum, she became involved in the alumni community’s trivia conventions and competitions, where she eventually caught the eye of Master Minds producers.
Pam officially joined the show as one of its “master minds” in early 2020, a role she stepped into with gusto. On an episode that aired this past February, she was steely during the show’s prerequisite smack talk. “I am ready to dominate,” she said, staring down the three challengers. Master minds and challengers go head-to-head for three rounds, with the one scoring lowest on each side being eliminated until it’s one-on-one. If a challenger defeats any of the master minds three times, that person joins the experts panel, potentially knocking one of the master minds off the show.
Not that it’s happened yet, of course— the experts are, naturally, wildly smart. They rattle off factual anecdotes after questions, including a recent minimonologue from Pam about how house cats (no, really!) are the biggest killers of birds every year.
So, she wasn’t fazed by the threat of competition. “Highly unlikely, Brooke,” she told host Brooke Burns, after Burns explained the consequences of losing to a challenger. She shook her head: “I don’t think so.”
That’s because trivia has always been Pam’s thing. Growing up in Louisiana, she watched Jeopardy! every afternoon with her parents. As she told Trebek during one of her contestant interviews, when she was just five or six, she asked her dad how she could one day get on Jeopardy! His advice? Try to learn three new things a day. It was a challenge she accepted.
“I’ve always had a curiosity about random things, and in addition to that, I’ve always been a massive reader—I would read the encyclopedia or the World Almanac for fun,” Pam explains. “My brain is the type that’s wired to hold onto nuggets of information, and in general I’m really good at remembering things I’ve read or seen somewhere.”
It’s a skill that comes in handy as an OBGYN at Boston Medical Center and as a BUSM faculty member. “I teach the essentials of care in the clinic, the delivery room, in the operating room, and so on,” she says. She also recently became the clerkship director for her specialty, which means she’s in charge of the third-year OB-GYN student rotation.
Obstetrics wasn’t always her plan, however—Pam initially thought she’d go into pediatrics. An obstetrics residency at Northwestern University’s teaching hospital changed that: “I didn’t have that aha moment during my pediatrics rotation, but I had it just about every single day of my OB-GYN residency,” she recalls. “It was over for any other specialty after that.”
Once a year she takes a break from BMC and BUSM and heads to Los Angeles to film Master Minds. She’s there for about a week at a time. The shooting schedule is grueling, with as many as six episodes filmed in a single day. (“It’s nothing I’m not already used to as an obstetrician, but when I go out to California to tape, it’s no vacation,” she says.) Despite the 10-hour days, it’s less stressful than her Jeopardy! shoots—“There’s not nearly as much pressure involved,” Pam explains. “If I’m not the last master mind standing at the end of a game, I don’t consider that ‘losing’ the same way one would if I were trying to win money.”
So, what’s next for Pam? Her own trivia spin-off? A memoir about her double life? For someone who generally has all the answers, she’s noticeably mum on the topic. What she can say for sure is that she’s enjoying the ride: “I consider myself an obstetrician first and foremost, but I am really grateful that I’ve gotten the opportunity to turn my hobby into something as unique as being a regular on a TV show!”
Want to watch? Stream full episodes of Master Minds at gameshownetwork.com. n
LaKedra Pam
The elderly patient was understandably anxious: aortic valve replacement was a serious operation. “I’m very worried about the surgery,” he said, speaking in Vietnamese from his hospital bed. “I don’t want to go through with it. I’m afraid that I will die.”
Mymy Nguyen (MED’21) looked at him calmly. “You are not going to die,” she told him, also speaking Vietnamese. “In fact, we know that you are going to be fine, because you have already had the surgery, and it went very well. I’m just here to see how you’re feeling today.”
For the frightened patient, the exchange in his native tongue brought relief, and for Nguyen, a third-year student at BUSM, who just completed a year-long clerkship program at a Kaiser Permanente medical center, it brought meaning.
“That was an important moment for me,” says Nguyen, who is currently completing the business component of BU’s MD/MBA dual degree program.“I feel that medical literacy is very important, and this was an opportunity to improve that, and to help the patient understand what was happening.”
In the five years since the School of Medicine started a clerkship program at the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara and San Jose Medical Centers, 103 Boston University medical students have spent all or part of their third year of medical school in Silicon Valley, admitting patients, delivering babies, learning how to talk to patients and to family members of patients in various stages of medical crisis. At the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara, California, they have done clerkships in pediatrics, surgery, radiology, and psychiatry. In San Jose, where Nguyen studied, students complete core clerkships in family medicine, OB-GYN, internal medicine, psychiatry, and neurology. And all the time they were away, they attended Bostonbased lectures and academic discussions via Zoom.
The Kaiser Regional Campus offers third-year BU medical students completing their required clinical experiences a sunny alternative to Boston winters, as well as an alternative to clerkships in the many long-standing BUSM clinical affiliates, including Boston Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Mount Auburn Hospital, VA Boston Healthcare, and more than 40 private and group practices and community health centers across New England. It also offers an up-close and personal look at a different kind of healthcare system, an “integrated” system that is highly regarded for its emphasis on preventive care, its reliance on evidence-based medicine, and for doctors who are salaried, rather than paid a fee for service, an arrangement that discourages unnecessary tests and procedures. “That, I think, is a big benefit of the program,” says Subbu Lakshmi, MD, an internal medicine co-clerkship site director at the Kaiser Medical Center in San Jose. “Kaiser helps the students understand integrated medicine. They see the seamless
transition from inpatient to outpatient to follow-up. They see that doctors don’t have to run around trying to figure out how to get authorization to do tests or procedures. They see the attendings ordering what they think is needed.”
“What that means for students,” says Francis Chu, MD, assistant dean and program director in Family Medicine at Kaiser San Jose, “is when they leave here, the students can look at things through a different lens. We provide them with a perspective that helps them compare and contrast.”
Jack Killion (MED’21), who was a clerkship student two years ago and is now a resident in emergency medicine at Yale, says that observing the patients’ complete treatment from beginning to end was an enlightening experience. “I appreciated training in an integrated health system,” he says, “I think it improves the patient experience by providing a more streamlined experience with fewer concerns about what services their insurance might or might not cover. It favors a bigger-picture view of how a given patient’s disease is managed throughout their hospitalization.”
Nguyen agrees. “It’s a great opportunity to work in a different kind of care system,” she says.
“I can compare it to other systems and see all of the pros and cons.”
Every medical specialty presents students with its own daily schedule, but most days begin between 7 am and 8 am, when students arrive for morning visits with the patients they have admitted. At around 9 am, they join attending physicians on their morning rounds, checking on patients’ progress. Next comes a 30-minute one-on-one with attendings, where potential clinical treatments are discussed.
Lunchtime does not necessarily mean free time, as it often includes conferences with medical experts or other instruction.
In the afternoons, students may admit patients from the emergency room, always with supervision and guidance from an attending physician. The student sits with the patient and records a complete medical history, reviews available labs, and takes a stab at diagnosing the problem and formulating a treatment plan.
“It gives them the real experience of admitting patients,” says Lakshmi. “They go through their physical history and an examination.”
Later, the students will check up on the patients they have admitted and attend meetings with patients’ families. “They follow up with their patients,” says Lakshmi. “They see which patients are having procedures and they see how those procedures have gone.”
Jacqueline Chak, MD, an inpatient pediatrics hospitalist who teaches pediatric medicine at the Santa Clara medical center, says the discussions with family members are an important part of medical training. “These students are part of a team that sees patients every day,” she says. “We want them to be the point person. We want parents and families to see them as the primary caretakers, and see us as just backing them up. We are teaching them the medicine and also how to communicate with families and how to approach children, who are often scared of medical providers. We are teaching them how to be doctors.”
Throughout its first four years, the Kaiser clerkship program carried its dozen or so participants smoothly along the often intense journey from students to doctors. Things changed, in March 2020, when COVID-19 arrived.
“COVID affected the teaching here the same ways that it affected teaching everywhere,” says Elizabeth Yellen, MD, assistant dean of medical education for affiliated sites and director of Kaiser Permanente Regional Campus. “The third-year students went home for spring break and never came back. They missed the last bit of hospital training; we had to switch to virtual teaching of clinical medicine, which was challenging, to say the least.”
The pandemic also disrupted the schedule of 2020–2021 clerkship students. Instead of arriving at the California hospitals in May, they waited until September. To make sure that the summer months’ education would not be lost, the medical faculty used the time to present much of the didactic teaching that normally would take place over the course of the year.
At Kaiser, as at hospitals across the country, COVID-19 drastically altered services, as nonCOVID-19 related procedures were canceled or postponed until beds opened up and the risk of infection subsided.
“That really affected the ability of the students to see the cases they should have been seeing,” says Chu. “It limited their experience, but our faculty were pretty resourceful and found other ways to cover the material. On the outpatient side, the students had to learn a lot
Previous pages, from left: Students attend in-person orientation at the Kaiser Santa Clara facility on their first day visiting campus; Sarah Singh assists on a six-hour coronary artery bypass graft surgery during cardiovascular week while rotating through surgery; All students attend a lecture by Dr. Danny Sam on Kaiser’s history and the population they will serve.
FIVE-YEAR UPDATE
Kaiser students, from left back row: George Matta, Michael Ngo, Enrique Garcia, Phillip Richards, Rahul Bhale; front row, from left: Sraavya Kakarlapudi, Sarah Singh, Rita Wang, Jessica Shen, Jennifer Yu, Callie Ding, Mymy Nguyen.
with virtual care calls and video. All in all, COVID gave us a very different experience.”
Danny Sam, MD, assistant dean and associate professor of medicine at Kaiser’s Santa Clara Medical Center, says the pandemic dampened the usually stimulating social interaction between staff and students. “Before the pandemic we would go out to dinner and go to conferences,” he says. “The pandemic put the kibosh on that. It temporarily changed the dynamic of the relationship between students and faculty. These students are like family to us. They are here for a full year, and we embrace them.”
Chak says that different experience included a few upsides. In addition to requiring a crash course in telemedicine, it presented the students with an opportunity to see how medical experts adjust their practices as they learn more about a disease. “That’s one of the more exciting things about medicine,” says Chak. “And at Kaiser, the students got to see the different approaches of different specialists, including cardiologists, hematologists, rheumatologists, and infectious disease doctors.”
While the number of students in the program can be up to 16 (it varies by year), the program itself has evolved, particularly at San Jose, which became more teaching-oriented as two new residency programs were established. In 2018, the medical center welcomed its first residents in family medicine, and the following year the first psychiatry residents arrived. The Santa Clara medical center has long had residency programs in internal medicine and in OB-GYN.
Marina Dergun, MD, a codirector with Lakshmi, of the San Jose hospital’s internal medicine clerkship program, says the environment changed for the better when the residency programs started. “The students now rotate through the internal medicine program with residents, and the residents and the students really seem to enjoy each other. I think the students are getting a lot of very practical advice from the residents.”
“Sometimes the students feel a little better about asking what they think might be silly questions,” says Lakshmi. “They are a little more comfortable talking to residents than talking to attendings.”
Chu believes that the benefits of San Jose’s two teaching programs, the residencies and the clerkships, function as a two-way street, with residents advising clerkship students and clerkship students helping the residents become more comfortable in their mentorship roles. Chu says the early years of the clerkship program, before the establishment of residency programs, helped attending physicians develop the teaching skills necessary to work with residents. “I think the students really paved the way for the residency program,” he says. “Having the students there helped the residents take things to the next level. And the clerkship program helped prepare the faculty for teaching residents.”
For BUSM medical students, the teaching is clearly appreciated. Nguyen says there were times when the program was hard, but it was a great experience. “Everyone was so eager to teach me,” she says. “And we had really great teachers.”
Two days after this year’s program ended, Chu noticed a student from the program in the emergency room. “I said, wow, aren’t you done? And she said she was just trying to get some more experience in the emergency room and more time on the labor and delivery floor. It was very encouraging to see a student so excited about learning that she wanted to spend more time with us.”
Mymy Nguyen remembers the meeting well. “I did want a little more experience in OB-GYN,” she says. “I reached out to my attendings and they said sure, just come in when you have the time.” n
