This profile is adapted from "Love and Medicine" by BOBBIE COLLINS, originally published in HM News on Feb. 1, 2023.
Jane Neill, HMS associate dean for medical education planning and administration
Gregory Curfman, HMS assistant professor of medicine, part-time, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
When they married: 1980
When they met: 1978, at the Brigham when they worked together on a study about a potential medication for heart failure. Curfman was the clinical investigator and Neill was the nuclear medicine technologist.
Combined years in medicine: 93
How do you mingle medicine and medical education within your marriage?
Curfman: We have many discussions on these kinds of topics. Our professional interests are certainly a focus of our personal conversations quite often.
Neill: I frequently talk with Greg about the MD curriculum: the changes that we're making, what his experiences were as a medical student at HMS, even though that’s different from what it's like now; also, because he teaches in the MD program and has for many years. He has been an attending at Massachusetts General Hospital and on the clinical service there. So, it's really helpful for me to get his perspective on what it's like, not only to be a medical student and a resident, but also a teacher of medical students.
What particular things have united you in your respective areas of medical education?
Curfman: One in particular that we've spent quite a bit of time talking about, and thinking about, is the matter of affirmative action in university admissions. In particular, what might happen at the medical school level if affirmative action is overturned by the Supreme Court.
Our son Geoffrey, as a federal circuit law clerk, has helped us think through some of the legal aspects of this issue. And in my work at JAMA, I asked a medical educator to write an article on this subject. And this was a person Jane recommended who she thought would be a good author. And he turned out to be outstanding. So that's a recent example. We won't know the outcome until summer, but it will be quite important. And it's brought the three of us, Jane and I and our son, together on a mission to understand this complicated issue and what its implications might be.
What do you do together for fun outside of work?
Neill: About eight years ago, we bought a house in New Hampshire. It's sort of a vacation house, but we go there on the weekends pretty regularly. It’s a respite place for us but also just a great place to be if we want to be outdoors and in a really quiet environment. We both also read a lot. I would say Greg is more of a podcast person than I am though.
For the past decade, Greg has been the chef in our family. So, when he is at home, and even when we are both in Chicago, he makes dinner. He has a great cadre of vendors that he turns to for high quality ingredients. So that is something else we do when we're not working or exercising. We both exercise regularly and really enjoy that.
And over the many years that we've been married, we've traveled a fair amount. But we're not doing as much of that as we used to.
What else could you share with our readers, especially student couples, that might give them an inside look at a marriage in academic medicine?
Neill: We both have had demanding positions over the years that we've been married, the time that we've been at Harvard. And yet we've been able to find some way to balance having a marriage, having a child, and doing our jobs. I think that's partly because there's been a partnership, which I think is really important. And I really appreciated that about Greg — that he's been an equal partner in our marriage and in our being parents.
Curfman: Well, what I would say if I was offering free advice, is that even though being a professional couple is going to be challenging, sometimes complicated, difficult — it's all worth it. Now we're living apart several days a week and I'm traveling back and forth, but we've made this work out.
Neill: One of the ways that we have managed our long-distance relationship during the week is by having dinner together over FaceTime.
Curfman: You might wonder, how can this possibly work? I would say be confident and have no fear, and go after your ambitions.