Award recipients, from left, front row: Ron Walls, Shelly Greenfield, Joel Finkelstein, Frederick Ausubel, Grace Chang, Lise Nigrovic, and Mark Schuster. Middle row: Alan Zaslavsky, Dean Flier, Susan Bonner-Weir, Nora Yusuf Osman, Ekkehard Kasper, Mark Siedner, and Rebecca Baron. Back row: John Kelly, Stacey Tutt Gray, Karen Klahr Miller, Caleb Nelson, and Nancy Keating. Image: Jeff Thiebauth
Award recipients, from left, front row: Ron Walls, Shelly Greenfield, Joel Finkelstein, Frederick Ausubel, Grace Chang, Lise Nigrovic, and Mark Schuster. Middle row: Alan Zaslavsky, Dean Flier, Susan Bonner-Weir, Nora Yusuf Osman, Ekkehard Kasper, Mark Siedner, and Rebecca Baron. Back row: John Kelly, Stacey Tutt Gray, Karen Klahr Miller, Caleb Nelson, and Nancy Keating. Image: Jeff Thiebauth
Becoming a successful mentor means both learning and leading by example. So said the Harvard Medical School faculty members who accepted accolades at a ceremony last week honoring their contributions to the professional, and sometimes personal, development of colleagues, trainees and students.
Grace Chang, HMS professor of psychiatry at VA Boston Healthcare System, was called a “grand-mentor” because her mentees are now passing on the encouragement and support they received from her to their own mentees.
Susan Bonner-Weir, HMS professor of medicine at Joslin Diabetes Center, paid tribute to her own mentors and explained the responsibility she feels to the next generation of scientists.
“We all need mentors,” she said. “It’s a pay-it-forward system.”
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Chang and Bonner-Weir were among 18 HMS faculty members recognized by the School at the 2014-2015 Excellence in Mentoring Awards Ceremony.
In its 19th year, the program, sponsored by the Office for Diversity, Inclusion and Community Partnership, received 408 nominations from throughout the HMS community for 146 mentors at three career stages.
At the ceremony on April 14 in the Carl Walter Amphitheater of the Medical Education Center at HMS, a capacity crowd shared moments of congratulations and contemplation. Children, dressed in their best clothes, mixed with clinicians wearing white coats or scrubs.
The honorees thanked the people who mentored them, whether they were the clinicians who supervised them as residents, the scientists who helped guide them as graduate students or their own parents. The mentors also thanked their mentees, striking chords of gratitude and humility at being singled out for doing their jobs.
Mark Siedner, HMS instructor in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, said his mentees inspire such joy, “it’s like getting an award for being good at eating dessert.”
Nancy Keating, HMS professor of health care policy and HMS associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said her mentor, John Ayanian, a past award recipient, once compared mentoring to growing a garden.
“You take the best seeds you can find, you add a little sunlight and a little water, and then you step away and let them turn into beautiful plants and flowers,” she said.
“Maybe you occasionally provide the little support of a stake or move an obstacle that gets in the way, like a rock, but otherwise it’s just letting them do what they’ve done,” she added.
Joel Finkelstein, HMS associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, said he feels like he won the lottery with the trainees he mentors.
“Each of them is destined to be great. I just stand out of the way,” he said. “I’m technically their boss, but to me they’re my kids.”
Joan Reede, HMS dean for diversity and community partnership, concluded the celebration with thanks to Jeffery Flier, dean of the faculty of medicine, whose presence sent a message that mentoring is important.
“This is what makes Harvard Medical School what it is,” Reede said. “We are all connected.”
Young Mentor Award
Stacey Tutt Gray, HMS assistant professor of otology and laryngology at Mass. Eye and Ear
Ekkehard Kasper, HMS assistant professor of neurosurgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
John Kelly, HMS Elizabeth R. Spallin Associate Professor of Psychiatry in the Field of Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital
Caleb Nelson, HMS assistant professor of surgery and HMS assistant professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital
Lise Nigrovic, HMS assistant professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and HMS assistant professor of emergency medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Nora Yusuf Osman, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Mark Siedner, HMS instructor in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital
A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award
Rebecca Baron, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Grace Chang, HMS professor of psychiatry at VA Boston Healthcare System
Shelly Greenfield, HMS professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital
Nancy Keating, HMS professor of health care policy and HMS associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Karen Klahr Miller, HMS associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital
Mark Schuster, HMS William Berenberg Professor of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital
Alan Zaslavsky, HMS professor of health care policy (statistics)
William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award
Frederick Ausubel, HMS professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital
Susan Bonner-Weir, HMS professor of medicine at Joslin Diabetes Center
Joel Finkelstein, HMS associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital
Ron Walls, HMS Neskey Family Professor of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
