As an eight-year-old boy, Ronald Arky accompanied his uncle on house calls in rural New Jersey. The fee for a visit was two dozen eggs.
In the ensuing six and a half decades, Arky, now the Daniel D. Federman, M.D. Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at Harvard Medical School, has helped generations of students and faculty navigate evolving challenges of medical education and care delivery as he witnessed great changes in the culture, practice, and business of medicine that have drastically changed the way doctors and patients relate to one another.
Arky discussed these changes with David Jones, the A. Bernard Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine at HMS and the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, in May 2025 for the inaugural edition of Opening Doors, a series of conversations with longtime leaders and mentors in the HMS community.
The events are designed to allow veteran faculty to share insights from their careers — how they came to be at Harvard; what they’ve seen since they arrived; and how the community, culture, and care at the heart of the school’s mission have evolved over the course of their careers.
“People often think that institutions like Harvard are static, but who we are and how we relate to one another have changed over time,” said Joan Reede, the HMS Dean of the Office for Culture and Community Engagement and HMS professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to be able to talk to experienced leaders who have lived through so much change and to be guided by their insights as we move through the changes that are upon us now.”
The next talk in the series features Eleanor Shore, senior consultant to the HMS Office for Clinical and Academic Affairs and a pioneer in clinical care, research, and academic administration. When Shore was admitted to HMS in 1951, women made up less than 10 percent of the class. Now more than half of first-year students are women. Later in her career, Shore became HMS dean for faculty affairs and deputy director of the HMS Center of Excellence in Women’s Health.
She will discuss the challenges she faced, the impact that she and other women have had on HMS and the broader world of medicine, and her reflections and advice for those forging their own paths in medicine and science with Grace C. Huang, HMS dean for faculty affairs, on Nov. 18.
On Dec. 3, David G. Nathan, the HMS Robert A. Stranahan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute — known for his groundbreaking efforts in treating pediatric blood disorders and cancers and for his decades-long relationships with patients and mentees — will discuss his insights from a career in leadership at Dana-Farber and Boston Children’s Hospital with HMS Dean George Q. Daley.
Scheduled speakers for the second half of the academic year include:
- James Adelstein, the HMS Paul C. Cabot Professor of Medical Biophysics, Emeritus. Adelstein is a pioneer in biophysics and nuclear medicine who was executive dean for academic programs and Daniel C. Tosteson University Professor at HMS.
- Augustus White, the Ellen and Melvin Gordon Distinguished Professor of Medical Education and Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, Emeritus, at HMS. White became the first African American department head at a Harvard-affiliated hospital when he became chief of orthopedics at what was then known as Beth Israel Hospital.
Dates for these conversations will be announced.
This series is sponsored by the HMS Office for Culture and Community Engagement and co-organized by the Ackerman Program on Culture and Medicine, the Center for the History of Medicine at Countway Library, and the HMS Center for Bioethics.
Future conversations will be recorded on video and available from OCCE on YouTube.
