People Profile – Dr. Brigitte Grewe

Brigitte Grewe, DO, (PGY 3; Family Medicine) chose her specialty because she says it tapped into the three things she loves most about being a physician: working with kids, women’s health, and procedures. “I got a mix of all three by working in family medicine,” she explains.

As the MedStar Franklin Square Family Medicine Residency recruitment chief, Dr. Grewe aims to highlight these and other opportunities offered by family medicine in the hopes of attracting “the most accomplished and down-to-earth humans” to the program.

Dr. Grewe represents her residency program on social media (follow along at @medstarfranklinsquarefm on Instagram!) and at recruitment conferences. During the recruitment season, she also helps to organize pre-interview hangouts and resident interview schedules.

“The role of recruitment chief is not just about posting cute reels and stories on Instagram to attract an audience, but it’s to highlight and document how unique and skilled the people of our program are. It’s to show a culture of residency that is supportive of the resident and a place you can’t wait to join,” she says.

Having a good support system—especially a supportive husband, parents, and her MedStar Health residency “family”—has helped Dr. Grewe succeed at MedStar Health. Making sure to have your own support system in place is one piece of advice Dr. Grewe offers to this year’s incoming class of MedStar Health GME interns. She also says to prioritize balance, which she tries to do by hiking, cooking, traveling, and playing outside with her husband and dog whenever her residency schedule allows.

For Dr. Grewe, the great primary care doctors who cared for her and her loved ones while growing up in Hagerstown, Maryland, played a large part in inspiring her to pursue medicine herself. Dr. Grewe hopes that the future of medicine in the United States is one where more people of diverse backgrounds are inspired to pursue medicine.

“Time and again,” she says, “I’ve seen better patient satisfaction when they see someone who looks like them open the exam room door. I hope that is the future of health care.”