Spotlights

Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, was born in Brooklyn, New York but spent his childhood in Athens, Ohio. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biology and political science from Stanford University. As a Rhodes Scholar, he also earned a Master of Arts degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Balliol College, Oxford. He graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School and earned a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.

He completed his general surgery residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he has been a longtime faculty member. Dr. Gawande is currently on leave from BWH to lead Global Health at USAID, the US Agency for International Development. President Joseph Biden appointed Dr. Gawande to this role. He works closely with the Centers for Disease Control on complex problems ranging from disaster relief, conflict zones, food security and health equity.

When choosing where to complete his residency training, Dr. Gawande chose BWH due to a combination of happenstance and draw. At the time, his wife was pregnant and so it would be practical to stay in the general Boston area but also, in meeting Michael Zinner, MD, the Chief of Surgery at the time, Dr. Gawande was given a unique opportunity to both train in Surgery and follow his passion for public policy and health reform. He also fell in love with the operating room and was continually amazed at what people can do with their hands and their minds.

Along with Michael Zinner, MD, some mentors of Dr. Gawande’s were Troy Brennan, MD, Paul Farmer, MD, Jim Kim, MD, Howard Hyatt, MD. Dr. Gawande also cites Mark McClellan, MD, who was in the same internship year as he, who went on to head the FDA, as another example of BWH being fertile training ground for leaders in health policy.

A longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, Dr. Gawande is also a New York Times bestselling author of four books: Complications; A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science; Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance; The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right and Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.

He initially began his writing career submitting articles for Slate Magazine, an online periodical that his colleagues created. As his audience began to grow and the opportunity to write for The New Yorker emerged, Dr. Gawande began to tackle more difficult issues in his writing, such as why medical errors occur, the learning curve of being a surgeon and what matters most to patients in the end. Under the watchful eye of Michael Zinner, MD, his writing career flourished. It was the supportive atmosphere, the ability to take chances and the opportunity to train in a top-level program at a top-level hospital and write for a top-level magazine that made the Brigham such a special place for Dr. Gawande.

Dr. Gawande also passionately believes that the spirit of innovation and being surrounded by like-minded physicians whose goal is better patient care and outcomes is part of what makes BWH and Harvard so special. In developing new techniques and running large scale trials, Dr. Gawande was able to form a research team that grew into a health systems innovation center called Ariadne Labs located in Boston. At Ariadne labs, faculty work together, taking on various issues in healthcare from surgery/primary care/end of life care and childbirth and work as a collaborative team and tie their successes together.

Adeline A. Boatin, MD, MPH, is an Obstetrics & Gynecology specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, an assistant professor in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School and an affiliate faculty for the Center for Global Health at MGH, and the Program for Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Boatin received her medical degree from Columbia University and received a master’s in public health with a focus on International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her undergraduate training at Harvard University before graduating from medical school in New York. She was unsure if she would return to Boston due to the infamous winter weather, but when it came time to choose her residency program, she said she knew she wanted a place that would champion and foster her longterm goal of working in global women’s health. And the integrated Obstetrics & Gynecology residency program was world renowned. Its reputation helped sway her, but the real clincher, she said, was a get together held by the current residents during interview season.

Even though it was freezing cold and sleeting outside, Dr. Boatin found comfort and reassurance in the camaraderie and warmth that the residents instilled in one another. As an international trainee, Dr. Boatin wanted to find her home away from home and she knew that she had found that with the Obstetrics & Gynecology residency program.

Some mentors during her training were Ruth E. Tuomala, MD, Lori R. Berkowitz, MD, Carey M. York-Best, MD, Annekathryn Goodman, MD, MPH, Blair Wylie, MD, Khady Diouf, MD, Laura Riley, MD, Nawal Nour, MD, MPH, MBA, and Isaac Schiff, MD. They were all essential in empowering Dr. Boatin to advocate for herself and her career path even though it was not technically traditional. They never discouraged or deterred her from following her dreams and she is grateful for their teaching and friendship to this day.

Dr. Boatin’s work focuses on ensuring that women in low resource settings make it to the hospital in time for a successful delivery and that quality follow up care is provided to the mother and newborn. She has been piloting projects with wearable medical devices that track women’s during and after childbirth, so that they can monitor the patients despite severe staffing shortages.

There is not a single moment, but a conglomeration of many that stand out to Dr. Boatin when reflecting on her residency training. Though the faculty she trained with were all hard working and professional, they also knew how to bring levity and lightness to sometimes intensely stressful situations.

And there was always someone there for support. During an emergency surgery, Dr. Boatin remembers having prepped the patient in the OR and just as she thought to herself, “I need an attending,” Brian W. Walsh, MD, appeared, as if by magic, and helped her with the procedure. She never felt alone or unsupported during her training, she said, and she makes sure to tell prospective trainees that, whenever she can.

Read more about Dr. Boatin and her work: 

• https://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/19269/adeline-boatin
• https://researchers.mgh.harvard.edu/profile/9879899/Adeline-Boatin
• https://globalhealth.massgeneral.org/people/adeline-boatin-md-mph/