What is your hometown?
Avon, Ohio
When did you join the UI faculty?
2001
How/when did you become interested in science and medicine?
I liked paleontology, archaeology, and the usual stuff when I was a small kid but didn’t get interested in biology until I was a junior in high school. My high school biology teachers were two recent college grads who were a lot of fun and made the material interesting.
What interested you to pursue a career in medicine?
The first time I remember thinking about medicine as a career was in the summer before my senior year in high school. I read a book called, “The Making of a Surgeon,” which is a nonfiction account of the author’s surgical training at Bellevue in the 1960’s. I don’t recall whether it was great literature, but it was stirring stuff. Suddenly, I realized that there was something practical you could do with a knowledge of biology.
Is there a teacher or mentor who helped shape your career?
There have been many, from my high school biology teachers, to the charismatic GI faculty at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital where I did my Internal Medicine training. Another big influence has been Doug Spitz (in the Free Radical and Radiation Biology program here) who was my basic research mentor during my GI fellowship, when both of us were at the University of Virginia.
How or why did you choose the UI?
That was Doug’s doing. He had returned to UI (where he had gotten his PhD) and strongly encouraged me to come up and take a look. Doug rarely takes no for an answer, so I came and looked around and realized that the opportunities here were great.
What kinds of professional opportunities or advantages does being a faculty member at Iowa provide? What about challenges?
There is great breadth and depth among the faculty here, both in clinical and basic science. That, together with a very open attitude, creates great opportunities for collaboration.
Please describe your professional interests?
My clinical work involves taking care of people with a variety of chronic liver problems. This dovetails with my research interest in the processes by which chronic liver disease leads to cirrhosis.
What are some of your outside interests?
Cooking, reading, gardening, and traveling or just hanging out with my husband and daughter.
Do you have an insight or philosophy that guides you in your professional work?
I think that the more patients and their family members understand about their disease and treatment, the better they are at taking care of themselves. So I try to spend a lot of time explaining what’s going on and why we do what we do, so it doesn’t seem mysterious or arbitrary.
If you could change one thing about the world (or the world of medicine/science), what would it be?
That’s easy--universal health insurance.
What is the biggest change you've experienced in your field since you were a student?
Liver transplantation has really changed liver disease. Even during my residency in the late 1980’s, hepatology was mostly focused on diagnosis, because there was very little therapy. Now, we have treatments for a number of chronic liver diseases (although not all). Ultimately, though, transplant has completely altered the landscape for people with end-stage liver disease.
What one piece of advice you would give to today's medical students?
You can become an expert later. Expending a lot of energy on learning all the details is less useful than understanding the big picture (although I will admit that medical education doesn’t promote this attitude!).
In what ways are you engaged with the greater Iowa public?
I haven’t been very active in this regard, although I did participate in the “Women in Science” program with the Girl Scouts this spring.