Senior Faculty Scholars

Dr. Mindy Schwartz is the co-recipient of this years Faculty Physician Peer Role Model Award. Dr. Schwartz joined the faculty in 1987 as a faculty in the Primary Care Group, and has held a faculty position in the Section of General Internal medicine. She has maintained a busy clinical practice in addition to holding a variety of positions in the medical school and in the internal medicine residency program. Dr. Schwartz has been an award-winning teacher and was elected in 2010 as a Master of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators. Over the past 10 year she has studied and taught medical history to the medical students and to internal medicine residents. In May 2014, she was the local arrangements chair for the national organization of medical historians – the American Association for the History of Medicine.

In addition to her current academic interests, she has taught Nutrition in Health and disease in the Pritzker School of Medicine from 2001-9.

Dr. Schwartz currently serves as one of the medical school advisors- serving along with Brian Callender as the head of the Coggeshall Society. She also serves as the, Chapter advisor for the Gold Humanism Honor Society and she was Former Associate Program Director and Chair of the Internship Selection Committee for the Department of Medicine from 1994-2004.

Dana Suskind, author of the upcoming book, Thirty Million Words: Building A Child’s Brain, (Dutton, September 2015), is Professor of Surgery at the University of Chicago, Director of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Program and Founder and Director of the Thirty Million Words Initiative. Based on scientific research that shows the critical importance of early language exposure on the developing child, Thirty Million Words helps parents enhance their home language environment in order to optimize their child’s brain development and, therefore, his or her ability to learn. An evidence-based intervention, Thirty Million Words is supported by a broad coalition of public and private partnerships and is an extension of Dr. Suskind’s Project ASPIRE, which she created to assure that her patients from disadvantaged backgrounds reached their full listening and spoken language potentials. Dr. Suskind’s ultimate goal, and that of her dedicated team, is to help all children reach their full potentials and to close the ever-widening achievement gap.

Dr. Stephen G. Weber is the Chief Medical Officer and Vice President for Clinical Effectiveness at the University of Chicago Medicine. He is an Associate Professor in the Section of Infectious Diseases and Global Health.

Dr. Weber received his MD from the New York University School of Medicine and performed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago, where he also served as Chief Medical Resident. He completed his subspecialty fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he also received a Master’s Degree in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Since returning to the University of Chicago in 2002, Dr. Weber has served in a number of leadership roles focused on clinical quality and patient safety. He was the Chief Healthcare Epidemiologist and Medical Director of Infection Control from 2002-2011, and also served as the Medical Director of the Center for Quality from 2006-2011. He was later elected by the clinical faculty to serve as President of the Medical Staff in 2009. He assumed the position of Chief Medical Officer and Vice President for Clinical Effectiveness in May of 2011.

Dr. Weber has been recognized for his outstanding teaching by the University of Chicago Medicine Residency Program and is a two-time recipient of the Department of Medicine’s Outstanding Clinical Service Award. He has been recognized for his achievement in clinical research by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. His primary focus of investigation is the prevention of infection with multi-drug resistant organisms among hospitalized patients.

Dr. Diane Yamada is the Joseph Bolivar DeLee Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Chief of the Section of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Chicago. An expert in the comprehensive care of women with gynecologic malignancies, Dr. Yamada’s clinical research interests include complex surgery for women with ovarian/fallopian tube cancer and high grade endometrial cancer, the use of intraperitoneal chemotherapy and clinical trials. She is currently the principal investigator for a University of Chicago led multi-institutional randomized phase II placebo controlled clinical trial examining the use of metformin in conjunction with standard chemotherapy followed by metformin maintenance therapy. She is the author or co-author of over 70 publications.

In 2010, Dr. Yamada started the University of Chicago/NorthShore University Health System gynecologic oncology fellowship program and is currently the fellowship program director. She has held a number of national leadership positions including gynecologic oncology division board member for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG), board of directors member for the Society for Gynecologic Oncology (SGO), chair of the communications committee for SGO, and leader of the gynecologic cancer education committee for the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Dr. Arora is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Assistant Dean of Scholarship & Discovery, and Director of GME Clinical Learning Environment and Innovation at the University Of Chicago Medicine. As an academic hospitalist, her work broadly focuses on evaluating educational and clinical practice innovations that aim to improve the quality, safety, and value of care delivered by trainees in teaching hospitals. Her work to improve handoffs, supervision, professionalism and teaching value have been widely used by medical educators and has resulted in over 100 peer-reviewed publications, including JAMA and Annals of Internal Medicine, and have been featured in popular press such as the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and the Associated Press. She has provided testimony to the Institute of Medicine on resident duty hours and handoffs, and has testified to Congress on the need for physician payment reform. She is Principal Investigator of an NIH R01 to evaluate the effectiveness of a peer-led social media intervention to boost interest in research careers among youth and of an NIH R25 to train hospital staff to recognize sleep disorders and improve the sleep environment for hospitalized patients.

For her work, Dr. Arora has been recognized as ACP Hospitalist magazine’s Top Hospitalist in 2009, one of “20 People Who Make Healthcare Better” by HealthLeaders Media magazine in 2011, and as a Master to the Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators at the University of Chicago. She has also been recognized both locally and nationally for her outstanding mentorship of trainees and faculty through the SGIM’s Midcareer Education Mentorship Award, and the John D Arnold Mentoring Award and the Senior Faculty Education Mentorship Award at University of Chicago Medicine. As Co-Director of the Medical Education Research, Innovation, Teaching, and Scholarship (MERITS) fellowship, she has also mentored numerous faculty and fellows in their scholarly work. An active user of social media, Dr. Arora regularly tweets about current issues facing medical education @futuredocs.

Dr. Awad is the John Harper Seeley Professor of Neurological Sciences, Professor of Surgery, Neurology and the Cancer Center and the Director of Neurovascular Surgery. Dr. Awad is widely recognized for career long contributions and special skills in Neurovascular Surgery. He has made numerous scientific contributions including the characterization of subcortical ischemic lesions in the aged, advances in the understanding of the natural history and biologic behavior of vascular malformations of the brain, and technical advances in neurovascular and epilepsy surgery. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1998, focusing currently on molecular mechanisms of cerebral vascular malformations and their biomarkers, and minimally invasive techniques for treating hemorrhagic stroke. Awad’s innovations are changing neurosurgical practice throughout the world, and he has trained scores of neurosurgeons, some of whom are leaders of neurosurgical departments in a number of countries.

2014-2015 Senior Faculty Scholar – Retired

Anita Blanchard, MD’90, is a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB-GYN) at UChicago Medicine and serves as Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and Designated Institutional Official, supervising and supporting 133 residency and fellowships programs including 1023 residents and fellows. She maintains accreditation standards, promotes professional development, and fosters strategic initiatives and innovation in medical education. She served as the associate program director in OB-GYN for 5 years and residency program director for OB-GYN for 13 years prior to her promotion to the GME office in 2017. She has devoted 22 years of her career to medical education.

As a practicing gynecologist, Dr. Blanchard specializes in treatment of cervical dysplasia, menopause management, and geriatric gynecologic care. She is a former trustee and past vice president of the board of directors for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a former member of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) OB-GYN review committee, and the University’s co-PI of the ACGME Pursuing Excellence Initiative.

Dr. Blanchard is committed to enhancing Chicago’s South Side community by increasing the diversity of physicians and building programs to fulfill community needs. She has created innovative community programs including seminars highlighting maternal and adolescent topics. She also founded the Graduate Medical Education Resilience Initiative focused on physician wellbeing. Together with the Urban Health Initiative team, her Graduate Medical Education team launched a new program, Community Champions, facilitating resident and fellow participation in community engagement in Winter 2021.

Dr. Blanchard earned a bachelor’s degree in Neurobiology and Physiology from Northwestern University and completed medical school and her OB-GYN residency at the Pritzker School of Medicine. She is active in many civic organizations and enjoys living in the South Side community she serves with her husband, Martin Nesbitt and their five children.

Dr. Cohn is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Director of Clinical Sciences, Dean for Clinical Research, and Acting Section Chief of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. She has devoted her career to caring for children with neuroblastoma and conducting clinical and translational research focused on understanding the biologic underpinnings of high-risk neuroblastoma to identify new therapeutic targets. The long-term goal of her research is to develop more effective treatment based on the biology of the tumor and host genetics.

A long-term area of research in her laboratory has focused on investigating the role that angiogenesis plays in neuroblastoma pathogenesis and developing treatment that inhibits this process. More recently, Dr. Cohn has collaborated with Drs. Nancy Cox and Eileen Dolan to investigate the genetic variables contributing to racial disparities in survival for children with neuroblastoma. Dr. Cohn also worked with Dr. Andrew Pearson from the United Kingdom to spearhead a collaboration with investigators from around the world to establish an International Neuroblastoma Risk Group Classification System. This system was based on analyses of data collected from more than 8,800 patients. These data are available for investigator-initiated research studies, and in a recent collaboration with Dr. Sam Volchenboum, Chiam Kirby, and other members of the Center for Research Informatics at the University of Chicago, the infrastructure housing the data has been transformed into a live queryable database [the Interactive INRG database (iINRGdb)] using technology that enables connections to other data sources. To date, connections with the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Biobank and Nucleic Acids Bank have been established, and researchers can now ask complex questions of the data and have instant access regarding sample availability.

Dr. Cohn is an internationally recognized expert in clinical trials and the treatment of neuroblastoma. She holds leadership positions in a number of national and international oncology groups such as Children’s Oncology Group (COG), New Approaches to Neuroblastoma Therapy (NANT), the International Neuroblastoma Risk Group (INRG) Task Force, and American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Linda Druelinger, MD, is an expert in emergency medicine, providing the highest level of care to acutely ill or injured patients. Her major clinical interests include airway management, maxillofacial trauma, and postpartum emergencies.

Dr. Druelinger has a particular interest in medical education. She has been actively involved in both resident and student education, helping to develop curriculum at both introductory and more advanced levels. She is highly recognized for her outstanding teaching skills and has been named Teacher of the Year by Emergency Medicine residents multiple times. In 2010, she was the recipient of the Pritzker School of Medicine Leonard Tow Gold Humanism Award.

Dr. Kirschner is a Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Program at The University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital.

She has a longstanding interest in contributing to understanding the pathogenesis of IBD and improving care for children and adolescents with IBD. In this regard, she helped establish the PediIBD Research Consortium and has continued to collaborate with centers and consortia nationally to enhance knowledge relating to the genetics, microbiome and natural history of pediatric IBD. In addition, she is the site principal investigator for several clinical drug trials designed to determine the efficacy, safety and dosing of new therapeutic modalities for this patient population. She, along with colleagues within the Pediatric GI Section, have established one of the largest practices of children and adolescents with IBD and is considered to be an expert in the care of this population.

Dr. Kirschner has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in her field and has lectured nationally and internationally in topics related to pediatric IBD.

In addition to the clinical and research activities described above, Dr. Kirschner greatly enjoys teaching medical students, house staff, fellows and faculty and has been selected to receive an annual Teaching Award from the Pediatric Residents.