People Profiles: Dr. Jonathan Davis

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It may appear that Jonathan Davis, MD (Emergency Medicine) is in perpetual motion. Dr. Davis is always investing energy into forward progress, whether working clinically in the Emergency Department (ED) at MedStar Georgetown or MedStar Washington Hospital Center, serving MedStar Health’s 1,150 resident and fellows as the Physician Chair for Graduate Medical Education (GME), or even doing yoga on a Saturday morning.

Dr. Davis also serves as the Academic Chair for Emergency Medicine, and the co-chair of the System Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC).

Every day at GME is different, and Dr. Davis partners with Dean Jamie Padmore and the rest of the GME Executive Team to ensure that MedStar Health is always delivering an exceptional leaning experience. Dr. Davis draws upon his clinical experience in the ED to not only successfully triage challenges but also bring together multiple specialties and departments to quickly develop effective solutions. Within the world of GME, Dr. Davis must constantly interface with GME Program Directors, teaching faculty, residents, and fellows, MedStar Health and hospital leaders, and the Georgetown University School of Medicine leadership team.

Dr. Davis entered medicine because he always loved teaching and the life sciences and viewed physicians as the consummate teacher. That’s what inspired him to get involved in medical education.

“To me, foundationally, that’s what doctors do: they teach. Whether you’re teaching your patients or teaching their families. It’s such a meaningful role in GME, to provide education to those who educate others,” Dr. Davis said.

MedStar Health provides a unique learning environment for its residents and fellows. Being a consortium that straddles two major metropolitan areas gives it a distinct advantage.

Jonathan Davis, MD (Emergency Medicine)

“MedStar Health – with 10 hospitals and over 300 sites of care – is really a microcosm of health care delivery across the United States. We have rural sites of practice and suburban and urban populations. We have primary care and quaternary care,” Dr. Davis explained. “When we are teaching and training future generations of care providers, they get to learn in a wide-ranging environment that is likely to reflect some aspect of where our residents and fellows will ultimately work in the future.”

There is no question that the national health care landscape is adapting and evolving. MedStar Health GME is changing alongside it. MedStar Health places immense value on advancing health and GME is the centerpiece of its educational portfolio. We can’t advance health without investing in medical education and research and championing the innovation of MedStar Health training programs and faculty.

“That’s why I enjoy being at MedStar Health. We’re a forward-thinking organization that’s at the cutting edge of all these changes. What better system to not only adapt and evolve to the future, but also to create the future of healthcare,” he said.

For Dr. Davis, working at MedStar Health also brings him close to his hometown. He grew up in Gaithersburg, Maryland, but moved to California for residency where he met his wife who is in fact from Gaithersburg.

“All roads, at least for me, lead back to Gaithersburg,” he joked.

People Profiles: Dr. Namratha Meda

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Namratha Meda, MD, (PGY-3, Internal Medicine)

Not too long ago, Namratha Meda, MD, (PGY-3, Internal Medicine) embarked on a 13-day long trek across the Himalayas to the basecamp of Mt. Kangchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world. This incredible accomplishment – and the positive attitude it required – is indicative of the determination, dedication, and joy that Dr. Meda brings to MedStar Health.

Dr. Meda grew up in Bengaluru, India, where her physician father saw patients in a clinic attached to their home. “My physiology lessons started even before medical school, and I got to a point where I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” Dr. Meda said. After watching the impact her father made on his patients, internal medicine was a natural choice for Dr. Meda.

“It gives you a change to identify and address health before a person is truly sick, in terms of encouraging a healthy lifestyle. That’s where health begins,” she explained.

Dr. Meda’s willingness to take on new opportunities has led to her service as a resident representative on the Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC). She calls this role “one of the most important things that [she’s] been a part of in residency.” As a GMEC representative, she works with others on the committee, including Dr. Qingwen (Wen) Kawaji, to troubleshoot problems and streamline processes to make life easier for residents and fellows.

“We’re trusted with the residents’ concerns to create a conducive environment for learning, education, patient care, and just resident and physician wellbeing,” she said.

“Our voices matter. They’re certainly heard,” Dr. Meda continued. She encourages resident and fellows to provide input, whether it’s through peer-to-peer listening sessions or the anonymous Google form. “What is not measured cannot be improved, and the only way we can measure it is for them to believe that what they’re telling us is truly heard and to give us more and more feedback.”

She’s had the opportunity to work on several initiatives with the GMEC, from helping increase healthier options in the cafeteria and improving food access, to providing input on a pay raise for residents. “That’s a very valuable way of showing us that we matter, and that the work that we do matters,” she said.

Throughout her career, Dr. Meda has also learned that a willingness to learn is key to success in medicine. “It’s ok to say, ‘I don’t know.’ That opens a huge door of opportunities and learning,” she said.

When Dr. Meda is not practicing medicine or embarking on global expeditions, she is calling back home to Bengaluru to FaceTime with her Husky, Maya, and her family, or practicing the Indian classical dance form Bharatanatyam, an intricate balance between footwork and rhythmic patterns and music.

People Profiles: Dr. Neil Weissman

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If you ask Neil Weissman, MD, what he loves most about his job, he’ll tell you how much he appreciates that MedStar Health is not just “in the medicine business,” where the core goals are simply to diagnose and treat someone when they get sick, but rather we are committed to health, wellbeing, and preventing illness. That’s because as an academic health system, MedStar Health recognizes that there are many aspects of advancing health that transcend the traditional clinic setting.

 

“To address health, you’ve got to go beyond the four walls of a hospital. An academic health system lives at the crossroad of academia and the real world. It addresses real-life issues and determinants of health: social, racial, economic, cultural, environmental factors – all those things affect health,” he said. “We’re a true health system that connects to the community, which is an ideal place to do research and a great place to train.  It means the things we discover and learn are applicable to all those within our community.”

 

At MedStar Health, both research and education are core to the mission of providing high-quality health care. Dr. Weissman serves as the President of the MedStar Health Research Institute, where his responsibility is to support research within the system, and the Chief Scientific Officer of MedStar Health, which positions Dr. Weissman as an ambassador for the research being conducted at MedStar Health.

 

A trained cardiologist, Dr. Weissman originally decided to pursue medicine thanks to a very dynamic professor at the veterinary school where Dr. Weissman was taking a physiology course. “I wanted to go into a field where I could be a lifelong learner,” Dr. Weissman said. “Intellectual curiosity has been one of the big motivators for me.”

 

Dr. Weissman has been fortunate to have his career span clinical, educational, research, and administrative roles and all of these different roles were within the Georgetown University—MedStar Health system. As a researcher, Dr. Weissman was never interested in theoretical research. “What I always really loved as an investigator was to see my research put into practice. When I’m done with a research study and the results are immediately applicable for patients,” he said.

 

Now, he’s overseeing researchers at MedStar Health who are conducting research that has real-world impacts for communities here in the Washington/Baltimore region, and for countless others around the world. As Dr. Weissman said, “We are the future of academic medicine.”

 

What does that future look like exactly? Dr. Weissman is enthusiastic about the role that technology can help play in connecting medicine and clinicians on a real-time basis with patients. Technology that we’ve already integrated into our day-to-day lives, such as smart watches, could help foster a healthier future. “There’s all kind of technology out there that could passively help identify early symptoms of disease and allow us to implement early interventions. That’s where the future of medicine is, and how we’re going to become even more connected to our community,” he said.

 

While Dr. Weissman’s job keeps him busy, he also enjoys going on hikes with his dog Max, who joined the family as a so-called pandemic puppy, and tending to his vegetable and fruit garden.

People Profile: Dr. Danielle Grossman

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One day, Danielle Grossman, MD, (PGY-5, General Surgery) would like to own a vineyard in Napa Valley, California. California is far from her home state of Florida, where she grew up the daughter and granddaughter of physicians, or Boston where she majored in stem cell biology during undergrad, but owning a vineyard is right on track with Dr. Grossman’s enthusiasm to dive into new challenges.

 

“I’ve always been a hands-on problem solver,” she said.

Even though both her father and grandfather practiced medicine, she was never pushed towards the field. Instead, she felt called towards a career that would allow her to remain a lifelong learner and use that knowledge to help other people.

 

“Surgery uniquely combines all my favorite things about being a doctor: a patient comes to you with a problem, and you collaborate with your colleagues to figure out the cause. Then, the best part is that a lot of time you can physically fix that problem, right then and there,” she explained.

 

Dr. Grossman partially credits her success at MedStar Health to her colleagues and is grateful to her mentors and co-residents for getting her though tough times, including the pandemic. “Find your people,” is her advice to others.

 

“Medicine, especially surgery, is a team sport,” Dr. Grossman continued. “There’s a famous Isaac Newton quote where he said, ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ I believe that’s particularly true of success in a medical career.”

 

She’s working to help the next generation of MedStar Health residents see further by serving as a resident representative on the Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC). It’s been a rewarding experience. “I’m proud to be part of the team that’s working to improve food access, optimize interview protocols and orientation programs, and generally increase GME decision-making transparency for trainees. That’s really important,” Dr. Grossman said.

 

The GMEC has recently worked on a range of issues affecting residents, fellows, and faculty, from increasing access to food as well as increasing access to, and awareness of, mental health resources. “Access to mental health resources is more important than ever, and healthcare systems in America are finally really investing in resident and trainee wellness. Our GME Committee has really leaned into that which has been awesome,” Dr. Grossman said.

 

She encouraged her colleagues to reach out if they have feedback. “I hope that any resident or fellow in the system would feel comfortable coming to one of our GMEC members including myself, with any issue or any suggestion that they might have.”

Dr. Grossman also shared a very important message: Please get a screening mammogram at age 40 and a screening colonoscopy at age 45.

 

“Prevention is the best form of treatment.”