Student Updates
MED’s Robert Lowe a Metcalf Award Winner: Teaching students how to be empathetic physicians
As a kid in New York City, Robert C. Lowe always knew he wanted to be a doctor. Teaching, however, never crossed his mind, he says, because he wasn’t the best public speaker in high school and college.
Fast forward several decades to 2010, when the School of Medicine’s graduating class selected the associate professor of medicine as its convocation speaker. Following a speech that was equal parts humor and wisdom (he opened with a quote from the Who’s Roger Daltrey), he received a standing ovation. Lowe won MED’s annual teaching award three years ago. And on Sunday, May 20, during Commencement ceremonies, he will receive one of the University’s highest teaching honors: a Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching.
“His exemplary commitment to the teaching of the art and science of medicine has shown students how to practice their profession with both expertise and compassion,” notes the award citation.
“Rob Lowe is a dedicated physician and inspiring educator,” says Karen Antman, dean of MED and Medical Campus provost. “We are delighted that his outstanding talent as an educator is now being recognized by the University.”
Lowe attended Harvard College and Harvard Medical School and completed his residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He then trained in gastroenterology at Boston Medical Center. He joined the MED faculty in 2001 and later became the school’s educational director of the section of gastroenterology. His research focuses on liver disease, including viral hepatitis, cirrhosis, and advanced liver disease.
Despite his work as a physician and a researcher, Lowe says that teaching is “a real huge part of what I do.” He is a clinician educator, who in addition to teaching students is engaged in faculty development workshops as both a participant and an organizer. And he has honed his skills by taking health care education courses at Harvard’s Macy Institute.
“No matter how many times people tell me I’m good at this, I always want to see if there are things I can do to improve,” Lowe says. “And I really enjoy primarily watching the transformation of college students into physicians—both at the level of knowledge and skills, but also the attitude of becoming a physician.”
The first two years of medical school, Lowe explains, involve intense classroom time, with some exposure to clinical rounds, while the last two revolve around hospital and clinic experience. His aim has been to crossbreed these worlds in a more instructive way. “If you can give students a problem to chew on, then the stuff they’re learning…can be better applied,” he says. “I find that leads to a much better and deeper learning.”
Lowe, or “Doc,” as he prefers to be called, stresses the importance of empathy in medicine. He’s read the studies showing that medical students’ idealism dulls as they are exposed to the mental and emotional stresses inherent in medical school. He tries to counteract that by paying careful attention to how students talk or act in front of patients, leading by example and letting them know that even the smallest things they say or do may have huge impacts.
“There’s always been a tendency in medicine to tell students to dissociate themselves emotionally in order to maintain a certain calm,” he says. “But it’s a balancing act. You have to actually feel the emotions and control them. Getting rid of the emotions does not help. Patients do not appreciate unemotional doctors.”
Lowe has been cited for his skill as a physician as well as for his teaching. He has been named one of Boston’s Top Doctors three times by Boston magazine, most recently this year. Not surprisingly, he loves being a doctor.
“It allows you to actually help people as part of your daily life,” he says. “Many jobs in the world involve you succeeding at the expense of someone else. You win; they lose. You get something; someone else gives something. Here it’s not like that. Everybody wins and loses together essentially.”
His students’ admiration and respect for his devotion to medicine and teaching come across clearly in their letters recommending Lowe for a Metcalf award. “Dr. Lowe is awesome—he makes you marvel at the physiology of the GI tract!” wrote one. “He is an effective, compassionate, and knowledgeable physician,” said another. “He demonstrates how empathy itself can be healing,” from yet another. And last, but not least: “He is exactly the kind of physician I would hope to be in a few years.”
The Metcalf awards date to 1973 and are funded by a gift from the late BU professor and Board of Trustees chairman emeritus Arthur G. B. Metcalf (SED’35, Hon.’74). The Metcalf Cup and Prize winner receives $10,000, the Metcalf Award winners $5,000 each. A University committee selects winners based on nominees’ statements of teaching philosophy, supporting letters from colleagues and students, and classroom observations. This year’s Metcalf Cup and Prize winner is Andrew Duffy, a College of Arts & Sciences master lecturer in physics, and the other Metcalf Award winner is Marisa Milanese, a CAS Writing Program senior lecturer.
This BU Today article was written by Leslie Friday. She can be reached at lfriday@bu.edu.
May 22 CTSI Lecture: Clinical Research Resources and Facilities
As part of the Meet the CTSI monthly lecture series, the Medical Campus research community is invited to join Richard Saitz, MD, MPH, Mary-Tara Roth, RN, Linda Rosen, Mary Aldrich, RN and Kimberly Russell-Lucas, MPH, CCRP to learn about “Clinical Research Resources and Facilities.”
Each month the CTSI will introduce one or more of its faculty, clinicians, staff and affiliates of the BU CTSI and engage in discussions geared specifically towards the BU research community. Join us and learn how the CTSI can help you.
- CSTI Lecture: Clinical Research Resources and Facilities
- Thursday, May 22
- 4–5 p.m.
- Instructional Building (L Building), Room L110
Questions? Contact Tasha Watson, tawatson@bu.edu or go to http://ctsi.bu.edu
BUMC Housing Fair June 8
Do you need to find a roommate, an apartment, or someone to sublet your place? The annual BUMC Housing Fair is free and open to the BUMC community including current and incoming students to the schools of Medicine, Public Health, Dental Medicine and division of Graduate Medical Sciences. The fair offers a great opportunity to meet with local area landlords, property owners, realty organizations, and BU offices who are there to talk and guide you through the housing search process. The Housing Fair serves as a good way to meet a number of potential roommates and landlords during a short period of time and also to find housing leads for this academic year. Representatives from companies providing furniture and transportation services will attend as well. Light brunch refreshments will be available for all fair participants.
If you have questions about the fair, please call 638-5125 or email ohr@bu.edu. For more information visit https://www.bumc.bu.edu/ohr/.
- BUMC Housing Fair
- Friday , June 8
- 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
- BUMC Instructional Building, Hiebert Lounge
BUSM Student Selected as Boston Schweitzer Fellow
Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) postgraduate student Simone Ellis has been selected as a 2012 Boston Schweitzer Fellow. Over the next year Ellis and 15 other local graduate students will learn to effectively address the social factors that impact health while developing leadership skills.
The fellows will partner with community organizations to develop and implement yearlong, mentored service projects that improve health and well-being in underserved communities.
Ellis plans to diversify the next generation of healthcare leaders by engaging youth in the Roxbury community to consider careers in the health field. Under the guidance of mentors, young students will become local leaders by developing community service projects to improve health outcomes in their own neighborhoods. While encouraging civic engagement, Ellis will expose the students to promising areas of medical research, explore the physiology and pathology of health care disparities, and provide resources for college preparation.
“I feel that in order to prepare a new generation of diverse health care providers, all students must have exposure to career possibilities in medicine so that they can take the steps necessary to achieve academic success in high school and beyond,” said Ellis.
Upon completion of her initial year, Ellis will become a Schweitzer Fellow for Life and join a network of more than 2,500 Schweitzer alumni who are committed to addressing the health needs of underserved people throughout their careers.
Register for John McCahan Medical Campus Education Day, May 23
Don’t miss the seventh annual John McCahan Medical Campus Education Day on May 23. This all day event is sponsored by Boston University’s Schools of Medicine, Dental Medicine, Public Health, and the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences.
Medical Campus Education Day allows members of the Medical Campus to showcase their scholarly activities in education. Faculty, trainees, staff and students are invited to attend workshops, a poster session, and presentations of award winning abstracts.
Network with colleagues from across the Medical Campus and meet with featured educational vendors. Awards will be given to faculty members from each of the four schools including the BUSPH Educational Innovation Award, the GMS Faculty Recognition Award, the BUSM OAA Voluntary Faculty Award of Excellence and the BUGSDM Award for Innovation in Education.
The audience will be treated to updates on the educational advancements in each of the Medical Campus schools by a panel of academic deans including: Drs. Lisa Sullivan, Associate Dean of Education, School of Public Health; Cataldo Leone, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Goldman School of Dental Medicine; Linda Hyman, Associate Provost for the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences; and Angela Jackson, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, School of Medicine.
Be sure to attend the keynote lecture presented by Constance Bowe, MD, a senior consultant at Partners Harvard Medical International. She will speak about teaching "digital natives" and preparing our students for a future where health care is increasingly networked in her talk “#Health Science Education: R Our Students Optimally Prepared for Their Futures in iHealthcare?”
More info available at https://www.bumc.bu.edu/jmedday/ or email Jackie McDonnell at jdesmara@bu.edu
John McCahan Medical Education Day
Wednesday, May 23
8:30 a.m.– 3:15 p.m.
BUSM Instructional Building, 14th Floor Hiebert Lounge
Register at https://www.bumc.bu.edu/jmedday/
Douglas Faller Receives Grant to Research Melanoma
Douglas V. Faller, MD, director of the Boston University/Boston Medical Center Cancer Research Center, has been awarded a research grant from the Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA). The grant will help Faller, professor of medicine, biochemistry, pediatrics, microbiology, pathology and laboratory medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), continue his research focused on uncovering novel, targeted approaches to treat melanoma.
Faller is one of 22 researchers from leading academic research institutions around the world receiving a grant from the MRA to develop improved means to prevent, detect and treat deadly skin cancer.
Previous research by others has shown that activating mutations of a protein called N-RAS, or RAS-related pathways, are found in more than 90 percent of melanoma cases. Mutated, activated N-RAS is an attractive therapeutic target for melanoma, but approaches aimed directly at RAS or its critical signaling pathways, which are required for the viability of normal cells, have had very limited success.
The “synthetic lethality” approach being explored by Faller and his colleagues exploits an Achilles' heel of melanoma cells containing a mutated, activated N-RAS – the absolute requirement for a survival pathway mediated by PKC-delta. Normal cells and tissues do not require PKC-delta for growth and development. This tactic hijacks the RAS-signaling pathway, which normally promotes melanoma and tumor cell growth.
“Our approach could have broad potential in treating many forms of melanoma,” said Faller, who also is a physician in hematology/oncology at BMC. “This grant will help us better understand the molecular forces involved with melanoma progression, which could help lead to novel treatments against the disease.”
Faller received his MD from Harvard Medical School and PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Other research focus areas include the development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancers caused by viruses, and for the treatment of genetic diseases such as sickle cell disease, thalassemia, and cystic fibrosis.
”The disturbing increase in incidence of melanoma, especially among young people, lends even greater urgency to finding new tools and treatments for a disease that every year is diagnosed among almost 80,000 people and is responsible for more than 9,000 deaths in the US alone,” said Wendy K.D. Selig, President and CEO of MRA. “We are inspired by the exciting progress that is finally occurring in the field and delighted by the exceptional caliber of proposals, investigators, and institutions we are able to support through our 2012 grants.”
About the Boston University/Boston Medical Center Cancer Research Center
The BU/BMC Cancer Center comprises 101 faculty members from the Medical and Charles River Campuses. The research of Cancer Center members ranges from basic laboratory science to early translational and clinical research to population and environmental studies and spans the continuum from cancer prevention, screening, and diagnosis through treatment and survivorship. Scientific strengths include epidemiology, behavioral science, cancer prevention and control, environmental health, cancer disparities research, cancer cellular and molecular biology, genomics, hormone-responsive cancers, environmental toxins, airways cancers and the development of novel therapeutics.
BUSM’s Lowe to Receive Metcalf Award
Robert C. Lowe, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Education Director for the Section of Gastroenterology at Boston Medical Center, will be presented with a Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching at Commencement exercises on May 20.
“This is one of the University's highest teaching awards, and we are honored that Dr. Lowe will be recognized as one of the most outstanding faculty at Boston University,” said BU Medical Campus Provost and BUSM Dean Karen Antman, MD.
Students, faculty and alumni nominate candidates for the awards, which were established in 1973 by a gift from the late BU Board of Trustees Chairman Emeritus Arthur G.B. Metcalf. The Metcalf Award winners each receive a prize of $5,000.
“My approach to teaching is best described as using active learning principles and real-life cases to help students integrate the basic principles of medical science with the practical knowledge that underlies clinical medicine,” says Lowe. “In addition to teaching professional behavior, I try to instill a sense of the history and value of the medical profession as a whole. I take very seriously the trust and power that society gives us as physicians, and I explicitly remind students of their responsibility to individual patients and society as a whole.”
A native of New York City who now lives in Westford, Mass., Lowe joined the BU faculty in 2001 after a three-year appointment at Harvard Medical School. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Harvard College and his MD from Harvard Medical School, with postdoctoral training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Boston Medical Center. He recently was selected by Boston magazine as one of “Boston’s Top Doctors.”
May 10 Psychiatry Grand Rounds, “Stigma: Lessons and New Directions from a Decade of Research on Mental Illness”
“Stigma: Lessons and New Directions from a Decade of Research on Mental Illness,” will be the topic of the May 10 Psychiatry Grand Rounds. Bernice A. Pescosolido, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Indiana University and Director of the Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research will be the guest speaker. Professor Pescosolido received a BA from the University of Rhode Island in 1974 and a PhD from Yale University in 1982. She has focused her research and teaching on social issues in health, illness, and healing.
In response to statements that stigma was dissipating in the US, a series of nationally and internationally representative studies were conducted over the last 15 years to mark the public’s recognition of and response to mental health problems, including the nature of prejudice and discrimination towards adults, adolescents and children with mental health problems. This presentation provides an overview of where we stand in understanding mental health literacy and stigma, including changes over the last decade.
This program qualifies for continuing education credits for social workers, psychologists and physicians.
Learning Objectives
1. To review the meaning, types and effects of stigma
2. To understand the levels of literacy and stigma towards individuals with mental health problems
3. To understand the nature of change in stigma and directions for future anti-stigma efforts.
Psychiatry Grand Rounds
2012 Perkins Award Winners Reception, May 1
Read more about the Perkins Award winners here.
May 3 CSTI Lecture: Commercialization of Academic Discoveries and Enabling Patients to Benefit from Your Hard Work
As part of the Meet the CTSI monthly lecture series, the Medical Campus research community is invited to join Michael Pratt, Harald Steltzer and April Effort to learn about “Commercialization of Academic Discoveries and Enabling Patients to Benefit from Your Hard Work.”
Each month the CTSI will introduce one or more of its faculty, clinicians, staff and affiliates of the BU CTSI and engage in discussions geared specifically towards the BU research community. Join us and learn how the CTSI can help you.
Thursday, May 3
12–1 p.m.
Instructional Building (L Building), Room L110
*Light refreshments will be provided*
Questions? Contact Tasha Watson, tawatson@bu.edu or go to http://www.bu.edu/otd/