Progress Notes

Summer 2022

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1960s 

Maynard D. Poland, ’61 MD, recently shared a memory from his medical school years. He wrote, “As a senior student several weeks before graduation, I was alone, about to doze off in the house staff lounge at Wesley Hospital when the phone rang. I answered and a frantic-sounding nurse said, “Come quickly, there’s a post-surgical patient here who is having uncontrolled muscle jerking, like a seizure, but he’s awake!” She hung up before I could explain I was a student, alone. I sprinted the one floor up to the nurses’ station and was escorted into the room. The patient was awake, but just about every part of his body was jerking. I had just read an article in The New England Journal of Medicine about neuromuscular reaction to phenothiazines, and after asking questions of the nurse about information on the chart, I asked if the patient had been nauseated after surgery and been given Compazine. The nurse, ignoring my student status, answered, “Why yes, Doctor.” I told her to draw up 50 mg of IV Benadryl while I went to the phone and called the patient’s doctor, explained the situation, who I was, and what I thought was the appropriate emergency treatment. He agreed, and I turned the phone over to the nurse so she could take the order. After the IV Benadryl, the uncontrolled movements stopped, the patient sat up and lit a cigarette, and the wife, who had witnessed the unfolding drama, stood immobile trying to digest what had happened. The nurse was temporarily in a similar state, but soon broke into a wide smile.”  

Louis E. Fazen, III, ’65, ’69 MD, MPH, has been awarded the Henry Ingersoll Bowditch Award for Public Health by the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS). The Ingersoll Bowditch Award is “bestowed annually to a Massachusetts physician who demonstrates creativity, commendable citizenship, initiative, innovation, and leadership in the public health and advocacy fields.” Committed to advocating for public health, Fazen is a pediatrician, founder of the Global Health Committee at the MMS, and four-decade faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. He previously served as chair of the MMS Public Health Committee and currently serves on the Old Sturbridge Village Public Charter School Board of Directors and as secretary of the Board of the Public Health Museum in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. 

Elenuté Nicola, ’67 MD, recently authored a new book of poetry, The Villanelle Book: Love Poems. The book description says, “The language of love and longing speaks to the soul. The classic villanelle form is the perfect vehicle for such sentiments. The word villanelle comes from the Italian vilannela, which was a rustic song or dance. In France in the late 16th century, the villanelle evolved into poetry… The theme is still often pastoral or related to love.” As Nicola shares, “I wrote my first one, the first in this book, after reading about the villanelle form. It so perfectly allowed me to express what I wanted to say that I was hooked. The ideas for many of them came to me at night, when I logically thought I’d like to sleep, but the musical, repetitive villanelle was waiting for me to find those last few words.” The book is available for purchase at Amazon. 

1970s 

Valerie Bengal, ’76 MD, wrote, in a letter to the editor, “I marvel at all the high-tech and innovative research at Northwestern since my days as a student there. Recent issues have included other types of articles that resonate with my career, such as global health, equity, diversity and justice in medicine.” Bengal, a former associate clinical professor of Family and Community Medicine at University of California, San Francisco/Natividad Medical Center, also discussed the unique qualifications of family medicine practitioners, making them excellent sources for consultations and collaboration for subspecialists and interns, writing, “We are trained to use a broad, inclusive approach and to coordinate care among many specialists.” 

Timothy A. Sanborn, ’77 MD, recently authored “Passing the Stethoscope,” published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Cardiology. The article is a short story recollection from Sanborn’s first year at Northwestern University Medical School on how he, using the skills that he had recently gained as an M1, was able to examine and diagnose the breathing problem that his own father (a surgeon) was experiencing. The article may be read on the JAMA Cardiology website. 

Christopher Shearer, ’79 BSM,  ’81 MD, has been chief medical officer for Sound Physicians, Advisory Services since February 2020. He also welcomed grandchildren #7 and #8.  

1980s 

Dennis R. Durbin, ’87 MD, MSCE, has been named president of the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Durbin also serves as professor and vice chair for Research in the Department of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Durbin was recruited to Nationwide Children’s to serve as the initial chief scientific officer in 2018, supporting the recruitment of over 40 new research-intensive faculty, creating the hospital’s first chief clinical research officer position, overseeing the construction of the hospital’s fourth dedicated research building, and contributing to the formation of Andelyn Biosciences, a spin-off contract development and manufacturing organization for cell and gene therapies. An internationally recognized injury epidemiologist with over two decades of experience in traffic safety research, his research has received awards from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

1990s 

Arthur Ollendorff, ’93 MD, ’97 GME, was installed as president of the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics in March 2022. 

2000s 

Christina L. Jenkins, ’00 MD, was recently named to the board of Help at Home, one of the nation’s largest homecare providers with over 30,000 caregivers. Jenkins is a venture investor and adviser who uses technology and trusted relationships to improve health at scale, with focus on evidence-based technologies that better meet the health needs of women, the aging, and other underserved populations. She is a board member of venture-backed companies Xandar Kardian, FIGUR8, and Madorra, and an advisory board member of multiple value-generating healthcare companies, including Independence Health Group (parent of Independence Blue Cross and AmeriHealth Caritas) and MDisrupt. She also is a former Bloomberg appointee to the board of NYC Health + Hospitals and chair of its Quality and Performance Committee. Jenkins actively leads venture investments in seed and early-stage digital health and hardware-enabled companies for Phoenix Venture Partners. Separately, Jenkins is a national advisor to Manatt Health, a division of Manatt Phelps and Phillips. 

Paul Chung, ’02 MD, was awarded the 2022 American Pediatric Association Miller-Sarkin Mentoring Award. 

Tiffany I. Leung ’04, ’08 MD, MPH, FACP, FAMIA, FEFIM, has been named scientific editor for JMIR Publications, an open access publisher of research in the field of digital health, including innovations in health care technologies, patient and caregiver education, participatory medicine, biomedical engineering, and medical informatics. Leung is a practicing telemedicine physician with U.S. board certifications in Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics. She also is a registered physician in the Netherlands. Leung is editor-in-chief of the Society of General Internal Medicine’s (SGIM) monthly newsletter, SGIM Forum, co-chair of the Women in American Medical Informatics Association Steering Committee, and past chair of the American College of Physicians’ Council of Early Career Physicians. She also is co-executive producer of The DEI Shift, a podcast to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in medicine, and is the 2022 recipient of the American College of Physicians’ Walter J. McDonald Award for Early Career Physicians. 

2020s