Visionaries for the Future of Health
Our country needs bold, new approaches to solve its most vexing health challenges. Providing an environment for innovation, the Institute’s Scholars and Fellows Programs enable accomplished visionaries (Scholars) and young trailblazers (Fellows) to take their work in pioneering directions. Twice a year they gather from around the world as a collaborative think-tank at the Institute’s headquarters.
We recently welcomed these additions:
Scholars
Paul Dieppe, MD, Emeritus Professor of Health and Wellbeing at University of Exeter Medical School in England, is one of the world’s leading researchers on osteoarthritis. Through his Institute-supported project studying the “healing experience” across different traditions, Dr. Dieppe aims to gain a better understanding of the healing response and to develop theories about what works for whom and in what circumstances.
Kurt Stange, MD, PhD, a national leader in family medicine research and policy, is the Gertrude Donnelly Hess Chair in Oncology Research at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Stange is exploring how the fundamentals of relationships between health professionals and patients can be re-invented in the information age. Dr. Stange is addressing these questions through theory development and policy analysis, and unveiling the complexities of these relationships in narrative non-fiction and a novel.
Fellows
Andrew Ahn, MD, MPH, an internist and faculty member at Harvard University, is working towards the development of a single diagnostic tool that would provide a snapshot of a patient’s health. To lay the foundation, Dr. Ahn is taking a cutting-edge, systems-based approach in search of meaningful patterns in a diverse set of data from more than 25,000 patient stays in intensive care units.
Jeffrey Greeson, PhD, MS, a clinical psychologist and junior faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, is studying how the self-care practice of mindfulness can reduce the risk of disease and promote health. Specifically, he’s examining whether a mindfulness practice affects the expression of genes associated with inflammation, a key contributor to chronic disease, such as diabetes and arthritis.
