The Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing provides opportunities for physicians who are at all levels of training and practice – from pre-medical students through emeritus faculty – at Johns Hopkins University and beyond to explore the ‘big questions’ of what it means to be human, to be a physician, and to lead a good life – under the mentorship of physician faculty recognized nationally for their excellence as clinicians and teachers.
Mission
To bring the body of scientific evidence from interdisciplinary scholarly research on the key pathways to human health and flourishing to an audience of clinicians and clinicians-in-training, locally and globally.
This mission is primarily an educational one; however, with the establishment of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard (led by VanderWeele with a mission to integrate knowledge from the empirical social sciences and the humanities on topics central to human flourishing), our thinking about our mission has expanded to include all three parts of the academic tripartite mission (education, research, and clinical). In addition to bringing this evidence to an audience of clinicians and clinicians-in-training (education), we will bring this evidence to patients (clinical) and evaluate its application in clinical and education programs (research).
The McHugh Program core faculty recognizes that the practice of medicine is a moral enterprise and that these philosophical questions are central to medical education and patient care. They also recognize that, given the explosion of scientific and technologic advances, an imbalance has occurred in medical education and practice between the technical and human caring sides of medicine, such that the human aspects of medicine have moved to the periphery of the curriculum and patient care.
Vision
To achieve more humanistic clinical practice relevant to human health and flourishing.
This ultimate destination is based on the recognition that health is a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” In order to help individuals achieve and sustain true health, physicians must understand each of their patients as a human being living within a particular social context. However, given so many recent advances in science and technology, the teaching and practice of medicine has understandably turned its focus towards this side of medicine, and away from medicine’s more personal, human caring aspect. The use of the electronic health record and computer in the exam room has also distracted physicians from understanding their patients as individuals. The resulting lack of connection with patients not only adversely affects the health of patients, but also leads to diminished professional satisfaction among physicians.
Aristotle used the term eudamonia, best translated as flourishing, to describe the state when all aspects of life are good. The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science – led by Tyler VanderWeele – has reinvigorated the argument for the relevance of these big questions – long considered in Western philosophy and the arts – to medicine and health. VanderWeele’s model of human flourishing includes the well-established components of happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and financial and material stability, for which he has proposed four evidence-based pathways: family, work, education, and religious community.
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Fouded in 2015, the Paul McHugh Program in Human Flourishing’s mission is to bring the “big questions” into the forefront of medical education (from which responses can come from both the arts and humanities, as well as the sciences – as VanderWeele’s work suggests) and so support the moral formation of physicians who are at all levels of medical training and practice. Although the Program resides within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, which covers some operational costs (e.g., office space, utilities), it is dependent on external funding to maintain its activities.
Since its inception, the Program has developed and launched several initiatives. The Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing’s most central initiative is the Longitudinal Scholars Program (LSP) in Human Flourishing, a formal fellowship program focused on the professional formation of medical students at Johns Hopkins University. The LSP grew out of a non-credit reading seminar for second year medical students, co-led by Drs. Paul McHugh and Margaret Chisolm, that used Leon Kass’ Being Human as its text. From this monthly reading seminar, longitudinal mentoring relationships with medical students grew and a first-year component was added – and the LSP formalized – in 2018, in which McHugh Program faculty advise students on the development of a flourishing-relevant scholarly research project, as part of a course required by the medical school curriculum. Since then, the LSP has selected 3-6 medical students for each year’s cohort for whom individual and group mentorship now occurs through all four years of medical school, and beyond.
In addition to the LSP activities, which are focused on a select group of medical students, the Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing expands its footprint at the medical school by offering multiple non-credit programs and for-credit courses for any Johns Hopkins University medical student. Dr. Chisolm has developed arts and humanities-based curricula for one required and three elective medical school courses, two of which she has led as course director. For example, in February 2022, Dr. Chisolm launched a 4-week museum-based elective for 3rd and 4th year medical students. This course, like all of Dr. Chisolm’s teaching, aims to help students explore what it means to be human, to be a physician, and to lead a good life, both for themselves and their patients. Through these and other offerings, the Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing core faculty to date have interacted with several hundred medical students, as well as dozens of physician learners at other levels of training and practice (from pre-medical through continuing medical education).
To reach the broader Johns Hopkins University community, the Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing also regularly hosts invited lectures by prominent intellectuals from around the world who have written about the relevance of Western and JudeoChristian text to current life. These lectures range from seminar-style discussions offered exclusively to our medical students to public lectures that are widely promoted and attract large audiences of students and faculty from within our university and beyond.
Through these and other activities, including the publication of commentaries and original research articles in high impact medical journals, the Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing has helped bring the teaching and practice of humanized medicine back into focus at Johns Hopkins University and helped medical learners appreciate the importance of caring for the spirits of their patients in addition to caring for their bodies and minds. Although students participate in most of the Program’s activities on a voluntary basis, our aim is for more of our initiatives to be incorporated into the required medical school curriculum.
Wes Ely - Nurturing Healing and Flourishing - The Power of a Positive Doctor-Patient Relationship
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Foundations of Visual Thinking Strategies for Health Professionals
A concise half-day introduction to Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) -- including demonstrations of VTS facilitated by expert faculty and smaller group VTS practice sessions -- and resources to assist you in developing VTS facilitation skills to apply in your clinical care and/or teaching. A great opportunity to learn the foundational basics of VTS as part of a small group with feedback from experienced educators. $900
Dates for this academic year:
- January 29, 2025: 1-5p ET - Baltimore
- April 30, 2025: 1-5p ET – Washington, DC
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The Longitudinal Scholars Program (LSP) in Human Flourishing provides Johns Hopkins University medical students the unique opportunity to explore the topic of human flourishing in detail throughout the course of their medical school education. A description of this Program is below.
LSP Year One
In October of their first year of medical school, newly matriculated students learn about the LSP via an information session led by current LSP students. Interested students submit applications describing their interest in human flourishing and are interviewed individually in-person by one of the LSP Co-Directors. In November, a limited number of students are selected to participate in the LSP. Each accepted scholar is required to complete – for credit – the 8-week SC course in mentored research (or another scholarly project for those students with PhDs who are exempted from the SC requirement). Most students devote the summer after the first year of medical school exclusively to conducting their research. In preparation, the Human Flourishing scholars meet as a group at least monthly – often over lunch or dinner – from January through June – and again in August -, with the LSP faculty to formulate a research question or scholarly objective in an area of individual interest related to the topic of human flourishing. (Co-mentorship with other faculty members -- both within and beyond the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences-- is possible.) In addition, LSP faculty are available to provide individual mentoring to scholars, upon request. After developing a plan that addresses the research question using appropriate methods, each scholar then conducts his or her project. Many past scholars have received additional funding for their research via the William Walker Award from the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. LSP faculty have also successfully nominated scholars for local and national awards including the 2020-2021 Harold Lamport Biomedical Research Prize, established in 1976 by the Lamport Foundation (awarded to LSP student Howard Chang) and the 2022 Leah J. Dickstein MD Medical Student Award from the Association of Women Psychiatrists (awarded to LSP student Gabriela Gomez). Every year we distribute a post-year 1 survey to LSP students to assess the impact of the first year of the Program. Select quotes from students about the 1st year experience:
“The LSP program was one of the highlights of first year for me; the mentorship and learning I gained from it was invaluable and I would love for other peers to gain from the experience as well.”
“It was very meaningful to be able to find a fantastic research project through my LSP mentors; I have thoroughly enjoyed participating in it and it has been a wonderful learning experience.
LSP Year Two
Upon completion of the SC program, LSP faculty meet monthly with the LSP students – often over lunch – from September through February, at which point the students begin transitioning to the clinical years of their education. In Year Two, discussion focuses not on research but on a pre-assigned, brief reading from the humanities (e.g., poem, short story, essay, novel excerpt), used as a prompt to explore what it means to be human, to be a physician, and to lead a good life. Here is what one LSP student said about the 2nd year experience:
“Being able to come into the meetings and discuss issues that are very important to me but otherwise are not discussed in med school has been incredibly valuable to me. For example, the discussions of the Hippocratic oath, flourishing, and great discussions of medical school have helped me reflect on my medical school experience whilst in it, something I otherwise would not have had the chance to do.”
LSP Multi-Cohort Events
Each year, we offer a multi-cohort Longitudinal Scholars Program event. These have included Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) concerts followed by dinner and discussion of the program with a BSO musician, as well as events at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the American Visionary Art Museum, led by Dr. Chisolm. Here is what one LSP student said about one of these multi-cohort experiences:
“The art museum experience was phenomenal. It was great to be able to do the activities with the members of the LSP cohort from both our year and the year above. It was a wonderful time of relationship-building and fostered a sense of community and safety.”
LSP Year Three
An individual research elective in human flourishingIn addition to the SC course in first year, each student has the option of working closely with an LSP faculty mentor further on this or on another scholarly project. This individual research elective could take the form of developing the SC project into a manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed journal or conducting a new scholarly project relevant to human flourishing. Participants in prior cohorts of the LSP may assist as peer mentors and/or collaborators. Here is what one student said about the LSP overall:
“The program has helped form a small community at school, but with students and faculty, where I feel comfortable and supported. It has been one of the highlights of medical school!”
LSP Year Four
Professional Identity Transformation: An art museum-based ElectiveEngaging in reflective practice about what it means to be a physician can help medical students understand the ‘why’ of medicine – the meaning and purpose of it all – and so inspire empathy towards their patients and themselves. In medicine, reflective writing has been shown to promote introspection and deeper consolidation of ideas. Other art forms – visual arts, literature, music – can also deepen reflection and transform learning, especially when the teaching takes place in a physical setting different from one that students normally encounter.
This highly interactive full-time course, designed for up to 15 medical students (from a class of 120 students) on the brink of entering their residency training, uses the art museum as a transformative environment in which to build clinically relevant skills, while experiencing and exploring what it means to be human, to be a physician, and to lead a good life (for both patients and physicians). At 4-weeks duration, the course includes 160 hours of synchronous and asynchronous arts-based learning activities designed to facilitate deepened student reflections on the “big questions,” and to support reflection on how family, community, education, and work experiences can offer opportunities for improving one’s life satisfaction and happiness, physical and mental health, character and virtue, meaning and purpose, and close social relationships. Activities take place primarily off-campus, including at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Evergreen Museum and Library, the Homewood Museum, the American Visionary Art Museum, the Walters Art Museum, the Cylburn Arboretum, the Rawlings Conservatory, and other community locations. All activities are designed and led by a team of medical and museum educators, including the former director of education at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. These primarily museum-based experiences include both beholding and creating art, as well as humanities-based readings, group discussions, and brief written reflections. In addition, students maintain a process folio of their coursework and complete longer, weekly reflective writing assignments in which they consider the impact of the course activities on their personal and professional lives, and the potential impact of the course on their patients.
The following are select quotes from these reflections:
“Overall, I am surprised at the very positive impact this course has had on me and my perspectives. I connected with the art and fellow members of the course at a deeper level than I had anticipated, and I look forward to continuing to look for such connections in the future. I am pleased to say this course has been a real highlight of my medical education thus far and I expect the lessons learned will help me become a more empathic and effective physician and overall person.”
“Over the entirety of this course, I feel that I have had the opportunity to reconnect to some of the more reflective aspects of my identity. I always considered myself a reflective person and my friends and I often practiced reflection together, especially during undergrad. During medical school I lost the time to reflect. It was not something prioritized in our curriculum, and I was so busy I often lost track of doing it on my own. I am so glad that I have had this opportunity to once again become more reflective, and think about how these last few years have shaped me.”
“I found the course to be reinforcing of my values. It never felt like there were values placed upon us, but so many activities asked us to evaluate who we were, how we felt and what we wanted that it became a space to critically think about our values and whether we were living by them.”
“I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve been stretched by this course. I’ve been forced to interrogate prejudices and limits to empathy that I didn’t realize I had. I’ve learned that art has a unique ability to cause vulnerable reflections that show me more about who I am and take me by surprise.
I gained an incredible energy, peace, and joy from taking this course, so much so that I wept after our last session. I am so grateful to have taken this course when I did and dejected that it is over. I feel more hope for my future as a physician, and more confidence in my abilities to face the future. I feel a renewal of love and appreciation for the arts and their unique power to give me joy, strength, connection, and reflection, and to guide me through life’s challenges and transitions. Thank you so much to everyone who had a hand in organizing this course! I cannot express how much I benefitted from my experience as a struggling student and future physician.”
“Looking back over the course as a whole, I think I have changed from the first day. Since I was young, I have always been someone who is afraid to answer questions in class because I do not want to get them wrong, but this class has allowed me to express my thoughts without that kind of fear. Without the same fear, I noticed that I began to let my thoughts wander more when thinking about a question. I gradually let my imaginations and trains of thought roam more freely than I normally would have done, and during that process, I became more true to my own feelings, thoughts, fear, and insecurities.
I came to realize that my journey of professional identity transformation does not end after this course ended. I hope to be able to continue using the same strategies that I have learned throughout this course to reflect about my identity as I continue on this journey. Thank you for being a wonderful instructor, and more importantly, for being human. It was a true joy having the opportunity to be on this journey with everyone in the class.”
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In Spring 2024, Dr. Chisolm launched a new course for upper-level pre-health professions students: Identity Formation for Future Healthcare Professionals: A Museum-based Course. This highly interactive course uses museum-based pedagogical methods to support the professional formation of future healthcare professionals. It is designed to prepare them to thrive personally and professionally during their professional training and throughout their careers. All sessions are held in-person at campus-adjacent museums (e.g., the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Evergreen Museum and Library, the Homewood Museum), on-campus, and nearby community settings. Class sessions include activities such as open-ended discussions of visual art, film, music, and poetry; sketching; mask-making; and reflective writing. Each week of the course centered on a core theme: 1) family, 2) community, 3) work/education, and 4) flourishing. No art knowledge or experience of any kind was required.
This course aims to facilitate deepened student reflection on: 1) what it means to be human, to be a healthcare professional, and to lead a good life (for oneself and one’s patients); 2) one’s sense of self in relation to one’s family, community, work, and education experiences; 3) opportunities for improving one’s life satisfaction and happiness, physical and mental health, character and virtue, meaning and purpose, and close social relationships; 4) the role of the arts and humanities in mastering skills, appreciating multiple perspectives, gaining personal insight, and supporting social advocacy; and 5) how the arts and humanities can support self-care and wellbeing.
The following are quotes from two students about the course:
"Medical school applications and pre-professional offices ask us the about our stats...but they never ask...what we’re doing to ensure that our –“als” (physical, mental, financial, and spiritual) are in check or where we want them to be before we begin the journey to becoming a physician. I truly am thankful for this class because those questions about my “-als” are put on the forefront. Throughout the semester, I’ve been asked to look deeper and deeper into myself and understand who I am as a person. I’ve done more introspection and reflection than has ever been asked me in my life and it is truly invaluable. I cannot wait to reap the benefits of what I’ve been taught and all that I’ve been asked to think about.”
“It will most definitely be the best class you ever take.” -
The Perspectives of Psychiatry Program for International Learners (PoPPIL) is an educational experience for undergraduate and graduate medical learners hosted by the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Under the direction of Dr. Durga Roy, this month-long rotation offers learners from around the globe an opportunity to observe the real-time application of the Perspectives of Psychiatry (PoP) approach to diagnostic formulation. Learners rotate through outpatient and inpatient clinical sites under the preceptorship of national and international experts in the field of psychiatry who use the PoP in their daily clinical practice. Experiences during the rotation include observerships on niche inpatient psychiatric units and subspecialty outpatient clinics, as well as participation in resident lectures and case-based tutorials (known as Service Rounds). In addition, optional scholarship opportunities are available to select learners. Since its launch in 2024, PoPPIL has hosted learners from Europe, Australia, and South America. Please contact [email protected] for information about how to apply.
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In addition to education projects, which focus on building clinically relevant skills and supporting the identity formation of future healthcare professionals, the Program has been engaged in two clinical enterprises: a self-help book for patients and families on how to flourish despite psychiatric illness and the development of the Art Museum Café, a VTS program for seniors with cognitive disorders.
Flourishing Book
Although many excellent books have been written by Hopkins Psychiatry faculty members for a lay audience, none has focused on helping patients and their families understand psychiatric illness and flourishing. Chisolm’s award-winning new book – published by Johns Hopkins University Press in October 2022 – links these two topics together, serving as a valuable educational resource for people with addictions and other psychiatric illnesses, as well as their family members. Through a series of case histories, including her own, Chisolm’s new book shows how one can flourish in life despite psychiatric illness. The Program’s External Advisory Council member, Cal Ripken, Jr, wrote the foreword for the book, drawing on his own experiences as an athlete, as well as those of other athletes, in meeting challenges.
The Art Museum Café
Our Department’s Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neuropsychiatry serves a large number of older adults with mental disorders and dementia. The Division provides care in a number of outpatient treatment settings, including the Memory and Alzheimer Treatment Clinic (MATC) and the Club Memory group, which is a monthly meeting of older adults with dementia and their care partners. However, at the present time, the Division offers no arts-based therapies for patients with dementia and their families. Using the principles of VTS, Lehmann and a senior psychiatric nurse, Andrea Nelson, designed and implemented an art museum-based program for the older adults with dementia and their care partners who participate in MATC and Club Memory. In each of these ‘Art Museum Café’ sessions, participants engaged with works of art in a guided manner that builds on life and lived experiences and uses their existing knowledge. Thinking this approach may have particular benefits for elders with cognitive impairment as it encourages their engagement in the “here and now” and therefore, has the potential to contribute to emotional well-being, self-esteem, and meaning, Dr. Lehmann conducted a study of “Art Museum-based program for seniors with cognitive disorders,” of 3 ‘Art Museum Café' sessions conducted over Zoom using carefully selected images. In addition to Dr. Lehmann and Ms. Nelson, the study team included medical students, fellows, and VTS co-founder/museum educator, Philip Yenawine. The study demonstrated feasibility and acceptability of virtual VTS format, as well as a high level of engagement by all participants. The stability of positive mood responses suggests the potential VTS to contribute to the wellbeing of both individuals with cognitive impairment and the family care-partners.
Innovative Research
Dr. Miller led a study in which she interviewed adolescents and young adults with mood and anxiety disorders about their perceptions of wellness/flourishing to refine VanderWeele’s Flourishing Index-Adolescent Version. She asked each study participant what flourishing meant to them, and each participant completed the FI-Adolescent Version, which includes 10 Likert-scale items. The study found that the FI items are suitable for use in this population. A longer-term goal of this research is to implement and evaluate this survey in clinical care to extend treatment beyond symptom reduction to promoting flourishing. In addition, Miller conducted a review of the literature on wellness/flourishing in adolescents and young adults with mood and anxiety disorders.
Kelly-Hedrick M, Lhaksampa TC, Chisolm MS, Miller L. What does it mean to flourish? Piloting the flourishing measure with adolescents and young adults with mood and anxiety disorders. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2022;0(0). doi:10.1177/13591045221143898
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Dr. Chisolm Publications
Supporting Those Who Give Care: The Baltimore Museum of Art has partnered with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to better prepare medical students
This article appeared in the May/June 2024 issue of Museum magazine, a member benefit of the American Alliance of Museums.Sacrifice as a Part of Medical Education: A Reflection on the COVID-19 Pandemic
Chisolm M. How to “pitch” a nontraditional career path. Roberts L (ed), Roberts’ Academic Medicine Handbook: A Guide to Achievement and Fulfillment for Academic Faculty, Springer Science and Business Media, LLC. Third edition to be published 2024.
International Review of Psychiatry guest editor, December 2023 Arts and Humanities in Medical Education theme issue
What's art got to do with it?-Transfer of learning in museum-based health professions education
The arts and humanities are fundamental to health professions education
Identity and Uncertainty: Art-Mediated Medical Student Reflections in a Time of Transition
Lifelong Learning in Clinical Excellence
What does it mean to flourish? Piloting the Flourishing Measure with adolescents and young adults with mood and anxiety disorders
The Role of Arts-Based Curricula in Professional Identity Formation: Results of A Qualitative Analysis of Learner's Written Reflections
Visual Thinking Strategies in Medical Education: Staying Open to Possibilities
Transformative Experiences at Art Museums to Support Flourishing in MedicineMentored writing: An arts-based curriculum for first-year psychiatry residents. Academic Psychiatry.
Integrating humanities curricula in medical education: a literature review. MedEdPublish.
Demystifying Psychiatry. Closler.
My Professional Totem. Closler.
Open Arms: The Welcoming Spirit of the Osler Residence. Closler.
On the Professional Formation of Doctors. Closler.
From Film School to Medical School: Part 1. Closler.
From Film School to Medical School: Part 2. Closler
From Film School to Medical School: Part 3. Closler.
On Looking: February Museum Visit. Closler.
On Looking: March Museum Visit. Closler.
April Art Museum Challenge. Closler.
May Art Museum Challenge. Closler.
June Art Museum Challenge. Closler.
July Art Museum Challenge. Closler.
August Art Museum Challenge. Closler.
September Art Museum Challenge. Closler.
October Art Museum Challenge. Closler.
November Art Museum Challenge. Closler.
December Art Museum Challenge. Closler.
The True Purpose of Medicine: Advice for Medical Students. Public Discourse.
Why This Doctor Became a Psychiatrist. KevinMD.
AM Last Page: The effective use of videos in medical education. Academic Medicine.
The online art museum. MedEdPublish.
Transformative learning in the art museum: A methods review. Family Medicine.
How visual arts-based education can promote clinical excellence. Academic Medicine.
The Role of Visual Thinking Strategies Coaching in Clinical Excellence, CLOSLER
Putting the Person Back Into Psychiatry, Psychiatric Times
Art Museum-Based Teaching: Visual Thinking Strategies, Academic Medicine
Relevance of Visual Thinking Strategies for Psychiatry Training, Academic Psychiatry
Mentoring relationships: a mentee’s journey, Academic Medicine
The Oxford Textbook of Social Psychiatry, Oxford Textbook
Art Museum-Based Teaching: Visual Thinking Strategies, Academic Medicine
Dr. Chisolm Interviews
Interview for New Books Network Podcast
Interview for The Gloria Purvis Podcast produced in collaboration with America Media by Gloria Purvis
Interview for Dome by Linell Smith
Interview for Human Flourishing and the Arts in Unprecedented Times: Part II by Rachel Lense
Interview for PBS Newshour by Jeffrey Brown
Interview for Woman’s World article by Lauren MazzoHumanities Connection, Maryland Humanitites’ weekly radio program on WYPR by Phoebe Stein
Hopkins Magazine article, “Helping Doctors Connect with Patients through Art,” be Greg Rienzi
The Professionals in Health Podcast Series (PIHPS)
Johns Hopkins University Newsletter article by Sarah Elbasheer
Johns Hopkins University Newsletter article by Shirley Marino Lee
Livestream video as part of Ars Medica Mentor Spotlight series by Janier de la Maza
A concept known as "flourishing", Johns Hopkins Health Newsfeed by Elizabeth Tracey
From Survive to Thrive, Psychiatric Times Mental Health Minute webcast by Paul Gleason
Happiness and Joy During Turbulent Times, Authority Magazine and Thrive Global by Jake Frankel
The Perspectives Approach to Treating Mental Illness, The InSocial Work podcast by Peter Sobota
NAMI Tennessee Facebook Live Interview, NAMI Facebook Live by Gabe Howard
Interview on Groks Science Radio Show, Groks Science Radio Show by Charles Lee
Back in the Driver's Seat, Hopkins Medicine Magazine by Karen Blum
Nobody Told Me podcast, Nobody Told Me! Podcast by Jan Black and Laura Owens
A Personal Prescription for Well-Being, Hopkins Dome and Hub by Stephanie Shapiro
Interview with On the Couch LA Talk Radio, On the Couch with Dr. Michelle (LA Talk Radio)
Diagnosing Mental Illness with the Perspectives Approach, The Reach MD podcast by Charles Turck
Interview with Open to Hope, Open to Hope by Gloria and Heidi Horsley
Searching for Medicine’s Soul podcast by Aaron Rothstein
Lisa Tener’s writing coach blog by Claire Nakamura
Dr. McHugh Publications
Methods of Reasoning in Psychopathology: Conflict and Resolution. Comprehensive Psychiatry.
Psychiatric Polarities. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
William Osler and the New Psychiatry. Annals of Internal Medicine.
Psychotherapy Awry. The American Scholar.
A “Letter of Experience” about Faculty Promotion in Medical Schools. Academic Medicine
What’s the Story? The American Scholar.
Witches, Multiple Personalities, and Other Psychiatric Artifacts. Nature Medicine.
Hippocrates a la mode. Nature Medicine.
The Kevorkian Epidemic. The Amer Scholar.
The Perspectives of Psychiatry, 2nd Edition, The Johns Hopkins University Press.
How Psychiatry Lost Its Way. Commentary.
The Death of Freud and the Rebirth of Psychiatry. The Weekly Standard.
Romancing Depression. Commentary.
A Psychiatrist Looks at Terrorism. The Weekly Standard.
Treating the Mind as Well as the Brain. The Chronicle Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Classifying Psychiatric Disorders: An Alternative Approach. Harvard Mental Health Letter.
The End of a Delusion. The Psychiatric Memory Wars are Over. The Weekly Standard.
Zygote and “Clonote”-The Ethical Use of Embryonic Stem Cells. N Engl J Med.
The Substance of Style. The Weekly Standard.
Shall We Enhance? A Debate. Cerebrum.
Teaching Darwin. The Weekly Standard.
Striving for Coherence. Psychiatry’s Efforts over Classification. JAMA.
Annihilating Terri Schiavo. Commentary.
The Mind Has Mountains: Reflections on Society and Psychiatry. The Johns Hopkins University Press
Try to Remember: Psychiatry’s Clash Over Meaning, Memory, and Mind. Dana Press.
Hysteria in Four Acts. Commentary.
Leon Kass and the Poets. In: Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver. Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass
Mental Illness – Comprehensive Evaluation or Checklist? N. Engl. J. Med.
A New Semester, a New approach to Campus Turmoil. The Wall Street Journal.
Growing pains. Problems with Puberty Suppression in Treating Gender Dysphoria. The New Atlantis.
Adolf Meyer: His Achievements and Legacy. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
Correction: Transgender Surgery Provides No Mental Health Benefit. Public Discourse.
Therapeutic Jurisprudence. First Things.
Uninformed Consent: The Transgender Crisis. Commentary.
Dr. McHugh Interviews
Dr. Miller Publications
Clinical Excellence in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: Examples from the Published Literature
Current psychiatric treatment for college students with depression only, anxiety only, or comorbid depression & anxiety
The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) pediatric and parent-proxy short forms for anxiety: Psychometric properties in the Kids FACE FEARS Sample
Enhancing quality of care through evidence-based practice: An examination of training and supervision experiences
Mood lability and bipolar disorder in children and adolescents. International Review of Psychiatry.
Venlafaxine extended-release in pediatric depression and anxiety. Pediatric Health.
Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Abnormal and Clinical Psychology
“How to help patients who feel angry,” Closler.
Updates in child and adolescent mental health. International Review of Psychiatry.
“How to talk about your patient’s electronic communication,” Closler.
“Why I care about the costumes in Little Women,” Closler.
“How to support teens’ mental health during the pandemic,” Closler.
Depression in Adolescents. New England Journal of Medicine.
“Collaborating with patients for optimal care,” Closler.
“Reflecting on boundaries during times of loss,” Closler.
“Fostering connections during the pandemic,” Closler.
“Sharing mental health diagnoses with patients,” Closler.
Dr. Miller Interviews
livescience.com: “More US Teens May Be Facing Depression: Here’s Why” by Sara G. Miller.
Faculty members serve as Program Director, Associate Director and co-director of the Longitudinal Scholars Program, supported by an External Advisory Council Chair.
We are advised by both internal and external advisory councils who support our mission. The Internal Advisory Council includes primarily faculty members from within the Department who meet independently from the External Advisory Council on a quarterly basis.
The volunteer External Advisory Council includes thought leaders, scholars, and philanthropists, drawn from other medical disciplines as well as from fields such as public health, philosophy, law, history, mathematics, theology, finance, ethnic studies, gender studies, athletics, and bioethics; some are members of the Johns Hopkins community and others come from beyond our institution, including from academic centers around the nation. The External Advisory Council convenes at Johns Hopkins semiannually, joined by the Internal Advisory Council members.
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Margaret S. Chisolm, M.D.
Program Director
Dr. Chisolm is Professor of Psychiatry for the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, with a secondary appointment as Professor of Medicine. She completed her M.D. at the University of Maryland and her residency in psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins Hospital before joining the Hopkins faculty. Chisolm has over three decades of clinical experience in both general and specialized psychiatric outpatient and inpatient settings and is board-certified in both psychiatry and addiction medicine. Chisolm has served as PI or co-investigator on several National Institute of Health-funded scientific and educational research projects, and on a foundation-funded clinical trial of adolescent depression. She is co-author of the textbook Systematic Psychiatric Evaluation and – more recently – author of a book for patients and families, From Survive to Thrive: Living Your Best Life with Mental Illness (JHU Press). In addition, Chisolm has written over 100 scientific and clinical articles about substance use and other psychiatric disorders, humanistic practice, and medical education. Her work has been published in top-tier medical journals such as Academic Medicine and JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Chisolm is co-editor of the International Journal of Psychiatry and on the editorial board of Academic Psychiatry.Chisolm is a member of the Miller-Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence, an Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism Scholar, and recipient of the 2014 Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award. She is a Fellow in the Association of European Medical Education, the Association for Academic Psychiatry, and the American College of Psychiatrists. Chisolm’s current research focus is the role of the arts and humanities in the professional identity formation of physicians. She was selected to participate in the inaugural cohort of the Harvard Macy Institute Art Museum-based Health Professions Education fellowship, and is a Visual Thinking Strategies certified facilitator and coach.
Paul R. McHugh, M.D.
Program Associate Director and Internal Advisory Board ChairDr. McHugh was educated at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School with further training at the Peter Bent Brigham (now Brigham and Women’s) Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, and in the Division of Neuropsychiatry at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. After his training, he was eventually and successively Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell University School of Medicine, Clinical Director and Director of Residency Education at the New York Hospital Westchester Division; and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Oregon Health Sciences Center. He was Henry Phipps Professor and Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Psychiatrist-in-Chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1975-2001. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine named him University Distinguished Service Professor in 1998. In 2015, he became the inaugural Director of the Paul R. McHugh Program for Human Flourishing, located within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
McHugh was elected to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences in 1992. In 2001, he was appointed by President Bush to the President’s Council on Bioethics and in 2002 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People. Above and beyond his many professional publications, he has written articles for the public on psychiatry published in The American Scholar, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, The Chronicles of Higher Education, and The Baltimore Sun.
McHugh’s career has four interrelated themes. First: To create a model department of academic psychiatry by rendering explicit the conceptual structure of psychiatry and by demonstrating what this structure implies for patient care, education, and research. Second: To teach how the brain-mind problem is embedded in these concepts and how it affects the thought and actions of psychiatrists. Third: To investigate the “motivated” behaviors, such as hunger, thirst, sex, and sleep that are open in this era to multiple levels of analysis from molecular biology to social science. Fourth: To examine the scientific basis for the role of stable family life, liberal education, rewarding employment, and community participation in the promotion of human flourishing.
Leslie Miller, M.D.
Co-director of Longitudinal Scholars Program in Human FlourishingDr. Miller is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the founding director of the Mood Disorders in Adolescent and Young Adult Program. This interdisciplinary program incorporates measurement-based care and provides evidence-based pharmacologic and psychotherapeutic interventions delivered with fidelity. Board-certified in general and child and adolescent psychiatry, Miller has been honored by inclusion in the Johns Hopkins Miller Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence and with the inaugural Dean’s Clinical Excellence Award for Excellence in Service and Professionalism. She has also been selected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. A certified trainer and supervisor in Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), Miller completed an NIH K23 career development award which adapted IPT for youth with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, and is currently engaged in a number of clinical research and quality improvement efforts.
Khalid Elzamzamy
Co-director of Longitudinal Scholars Program in Human FlourishingDr. Khalid Elzamzamy is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins. After completing his medical education and general psychiatry training in Egypt and Qatar, he moved to Connecticut where he completed a child psychiatry fellowship at the Institute of Living. He holds a Masters in Islamic ethics. He then came to Johns Hopkins to complete a clinician education fellowship in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. Dr. Elzamzamy is a member of AACAP's ethics committee. His interests focus on the interplay between mental health, religion, spirituality, and clinical ethics. Additionally, he contributes to various national organizations that serve the American Muslim community’s mental health and educational needs.
Durga Roy
Director of the Perspectives of Psychiatry Program for International LearnersDr. Durga Roy is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Medical Director of the Johns Hopkins Neuropsychiatry and Brain Injury Clinic, and Head Injury Outpatient Psychiatric Day Program. She is the Director of Education for the Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Internship and the Director for the Consult-Liaison Psychiatry Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is board-certified in general adult psychiatry, and consult-liaison psychiatry and behavioral neurology/neuropsychiatry. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications focused on neuropsychiatric outcomes after traumatic brain injury and is recognized as a national expert in the field of TBI neuropsychiatry. Her area of research interest focuses on the neurobiology of depression after traumatic brain injury and the study of prognostic markers for depressive symptoms after traumatic brain injury using resting-state functional neuroimaging techniques.
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In addition to Program faculty and the Internal Advisory Council, the interdisciplinary and multi-institutional nature of the External Advisory Council is essential given the Program’s vision to achieve more humanistic clinical practice relevant to human health and flourishing by bringing the body of scientific evidence from interdisciplinary scholarly research on the key pathways to human health and flourishing to both a local and global audience of clinicians and clinicians-in-training.
- Elizabeth Armstrong
- Catherine D. DeAngelis
- Elizabeth Gaufberg
- Robert P. George
- Leon R. Kass
- Donald W. Landry
- Hamilton Moses, III
- Sarah Reading
- Calvin Ripken, Jr
- Luis Tellez
- Tyler J. VanderWeele
- Candace Vogler
- Arthur Wiser
Elizabeth Armstrong is a Professor in Pediatrics, PT, at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, and has held positions at Harvard Medical School since 1984, including Director of Curriculum 1988 -1992, Director of Medical Education 1992- 2001 and Director of Education Programs at Harvard Medical International from 2001-2009. In 1994 with funding from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, she created and directed the Harvard Macy Institute through May 2023. The Harvard Macy Institute offers professional development programs for healthcare educators and leaders of reform in healthcare delivery and education worldwide. Over 6000 interprofessional alumni faculty share a community spirit in creating education innovations. These programs draw on faculty and teaching paradigms from multiple colleges at Harvard, particularly the Graduate Schools of Business, Education, and Medicine. In addition, she has customized the Harvard Macy program model through collaborative efforts with numerous international academic partners and teaches in many of those programs abroad. She received an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Lund Medical Faculty in recognition of her international contributions to medical education and in 2016 received the Award for Excellence in Medical Education formerly named the Abraham Flexner Award, the highest annual award given by the American Association of Medical Colleges. She also received the Barbara J. McNeil Award for Exceptional Service to HMS/HSDM. In 2022 she received the Merrell Flair Award in Medical Education from the AAMC Group on Educational Affairs.
Catherine D. DeAngelis is Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, Professor Emerita at the Johns Hopkins University Schools of Medicine (Pediatrics) and School of Public Health (Health Policy and Management), and Editor-in-Chief Emerita of JAMA (2000-2011), serving as the first woman Editor in Chief. She received her MD from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine, her MPH from the Harvard Graduate School of Public Health (Health Services Administration), and her pediatric specialty training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She also has been awarded seven honorary doctorate degrees and has received numerous awards for humanitarianism and medical excellence, including the Ronald McDonald Award for Medical Excellence ($100,000 donation made to the Johns Hopkins Child Life Program), the Catcher in the Rye Award for Humanitarianism by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, The Armstrong, St. Geme, and Howland Awards (Various Pediatric Societies), and a lifetime achievement award by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC).
From 1990-2000 she was Vice Dean for Academic Affairs and Faculty, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and from 1994-2000 she was editor of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and also has been a member of numerous journal editorial boards. She has authored or edited 13 academic books on Pediatrics, Medical Education and Patient Care and Professionalism, a memoir, a murder mystery novel, and has published over 250 peer reviewed articles, chapters, and editorials. Most of her recent publications have focused on professionalism and integrity in medicine, on conflict of interest in medicine, on women in medicine, and on medical education. Her major efforts have centered on human rights especially as they relate to patients, health professionals and the poor. Dr. DeAngelis is a former council member and current member of the National Academy of Medicine (nee IOM); a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (UK) and has served as an officer of numerous national academic societies including past chairman of the American Board of Pediatrics and Chair of the Pediatric Accreditation Council for Residency Review Committee of the American Council on Graduate Medical Education. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, is a member of the Board of Physicians for Human Rights and serves on the Board of Trustees of the University of Pittsburgh.
Elizabeth Gaufberg, MD MPH is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Director of Professional and Academic Development at the Cambridge Health Alliance, and a Senior Consultant to the Association of American Medical Colleges FRAHME (Fundamental Role of the Arts and Humanities in Medical Education) Initiative. Liz founded and co-directs the Harvard Macy Institute Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship. From 2012-2018 Liz served as the Jean and Harvey Picker Founding Director of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Research Institute during which time she developed a community of practice of researchers, educators and advocates dedicated to advancing humanism in healthcare. For over two decades, Liz has led the Harvard Medical School Cambridge Integrated Clerkship Developing Physician Course. Her areas of professional interest include exploring assumptions about teaching and learning, and developing innovative models of medical education, including longitudinal integrated clerkships and humanities and arts-based pedagogy.
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and is the Herbert W. Vaughan Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton. He erved on the President’s Council on Bioethics (2002-2009), and as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights (1993-1998). He also served on UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology. He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.
Professor George is author of Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality, In Defense of Natural Law, The Clash of Orthodoxies, and Conscience and Its Enemies. He is co-author of Conjugal Union: What Marriage Is, Embryo: A Defense of Human Life, Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics, and What is Marriage? He is editor of several volumes, including Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays, The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism, Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality, and Great Cases in Constitutional Law. Professor George’s articles and review essays have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Review of Politics, the Review of Metaphysics, and the American Journal of Jurisprudence. He has also written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, First Things, the Boston Review, and the Times Literary Supplement.
A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, Professor George also earned a master’s degree in theology from Harvard and holds the degrees of DPhil, BCL, DCL, and DLitt from Oxford University. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Swarthmore and received a Knox Fellowship from Harvard for graduate study in law and philosophy at Oxford. He holds twenty-two honorary degrees, including doctorates of law, letters, ethics, science, divinity, humane letters, law and moral values, civil law, and juridical science.
Among his awards are the United States Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, the Philip Merrill Award of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Paul Bator Award of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, a Silver Gavel Award of the American Bar Association, the Charles Fried Award of the Harvard Law School Federalist Society chapter, and the Stanley Kelley, Jr. Teaching Award in Politics at Princeton. He is Of Counsel to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Leon R. Kass is the Madden-Jewett Scholar Emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, and Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and since 2021 Dean of the Faculty at Shalem College in Jerusalem. Originally trained in medicine (M.D., Chicago, 1962) and biochemistry (Ph.D., Harvard, 1967), he shifted directions from doing science to thinking about its human meaning, and he has been engaged for nearly 50 years with ethical and philosophical issues raised by biomedical advance, and, more recently, with broader moral and cultural issues. He taught at St. John’s College (Annapolis) and Georgetown University before returning in 1976 to the University of Chicago where he was until 2010 an award-winning teacher deeply involved in undergraduate education and committed to the study of classic texts. With his wife, Amy Kass, he helped found a still-popular core humanities course on “Human Being and Citizen” and a degree-granting major, “Fundamentals: Issues and Texts,” emphasizing big questions and great books. His books include: The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature; Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying (with Amy A. Kass); Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics; The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis; What So Proudly We Hail: The American Soul in Story, Speech, and Song (with Amy A. Kass and Diana Schaub); Leading a Worthy Life: Finding Meaning in Modern Times; Founding God’s Nation: Reading Exodus; and Reading Ruth: Birth, Redemption, and the Way of Israel (with Hannah Mandelbaum). Dr. Kass served on the National Council on the Humanities of the National Endowment for the Humanities; in 2009 he delivered the Jefferson Lecture for the NEH. From 2001-2005, he was Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, which, under his direction, produced seven books on topics ranging from human cloning to biotechnical enhancement to the care of the elderly. In 2003, Leon Kass was one of four inaugural recipients of the Bradley Prize.
Donald W. Landry is the Samuel Bard Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine, and Physician-in-Chief/New York-Presbyterian Hospital at Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Landry completed his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Harvard University, M.D. at Columbia University and Residency in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital before joining Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine. His research focuses on drug discovery. He developed the alternative, embryo-sparing approach for the production of human embryonic stem cells based on harvesting live cells from dead embryos. He is inventor or co-inventor on 44 US patents and was elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2015. He was a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2008 to 2009, and is Co-Chairman, along with Prof. Robert P. George, of the Witherspoon Council on Ethics & the Integrity of Science. Dr. Landry received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation’s second highest civilian award, in 2009.
Hamilton Moses, III is a neurologist, management consultant, and author. He founded Alerion Advisors, LLC, which served corporate and foundation boards. Its associated Alerion Institute studied innovation in science, the arts, and the professions. He is Adjunct Professor of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He has advised many corporations, hospitals, foundations and governments as a partner and senior advisor with the international firm, The Boston Consulting Group, where he began the firm’s Science and Technology practice. Previously, he was the chief physician and COO of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, interim chief of psychiatry of the Massachusetts General Health System and McLean Hospital (Harvard) in Boston, and Professor of Business (strategy) at the Darden School of the University of Virginia. Dr. Moses is the author of 200 scholarly publications, was co-editor of the journal Perspectives In Biology and Medicine, co-edited Osler’s Principles and Practice of Medicine, and co-founded the Johns Hopkins Medical Letter – Health After 50, a popular letter for the public. Dr. Moses has served on many corporate and non-profit boards, was a trustee the McLean and Johns Hopkins Hospitals, a Special Prime Minister's Advisor to the National Health Service (England), and chairman of the Land Trust of Albemarle County Virginia.
Sarah Reading is a psychiatrist and senior physician with the VA Office of the Inspector General. Dr. Reading came to medicine as a second career after working in the arts and receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Florida and a Master of Arts in Theater from the University of Louisville.
Dr. Reading received her medical degree from the University of South Florida College of Medicine before transitioning to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1996 to pursue her residency in Psychiatry under Dr. Paul McHugh. Dr. Reading was Chief resident in the last year of residency and went on to complete a two-year NIH-sponsored fellowship in psychiatric neuroimaging. Dr. Reading’s research interests involved using advanced functional and structural neuroimaging techniques to identify brain correlates to executive dysfunction in Huntington’s Disease and schizophrenia.
After her NIH fellowship, Dr. Reading joined the full-time clinical faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences where her clinical, research and academic pursuits focused on schizophrenia. In 2010 Dr. Reading left Johns Hopkins to become the Chief of Psychiatry at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa, Florida and after three years, returned to Baltimore as the Director of the Mental Health Clinical Center at VA Maryland. Throughout, Dr. Reading remained affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as an Adjunct Assistant Professor.
Since 2018 Dr. Reading has served the VA Office of the Inspector General where, as a senior physician within the Office of Healthcare Inspections, she works to provide independent oversight of VA nationwide. Over the span of her career, Dr. Reading has authored numerous peer-reviewed academic manuscripts and received recognition and numerous awards from the 2005 Johns Hopkins Clinician Scientist Award to the recent 2022 VA IG Distinguished Achievement Award.
Over the last ten years, Dr. Reading has worked to integrate Aristotle’s concept of eudemonia into her clinical practice in both group and individual settings. In 2020, Dr. Reading became certified in the drawing-based mindfulness practice Zentangle®. During the pandemic and beyond, Dr. Reading and her partners garnered national attention for providing this meditative practice to groups across the country. Dr. Reading lives in suburban Baltimore with her writer husband, two teenaged children and Cookie, the dog.
Cal Ripken is baseball’s all-time Iron Man. He retired from baseball in October 2001 after 21 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles. His name appears in the record books repeatedly, most notably as one of only eleven players in history to achieve 400 home runs and 3,000 hits. On July 29, 2007, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
In 1995, Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s Major League record for consecutive games played (2,130) and in 1996 he surpassed Japanese great Sachio Kinugasa’s streak of 2,215 straight games and voluntarily ended his streak on September 20, 1998, after playing 2,632 consecutive games. Although he began and finished his career at third base, Cal is still best known for redefining the position of shortstop.
Ripken’s name has become synonymous with strength, character, perseverance and integrity. In 1999, Babe Ruth League Inc. changed the name of its largest division (5–12-year-old) from Bambino to Cal Ripken Baseball. Presently, nearly 600,000 youths play Cal Ripken Baseball worldwide.
Today Ripken is the Chairman of Ripken Baseball (www.RipkenBaseball.com). The company is growing the game at the grassroots level. It operates tournament destination sites call The Ripken Experience in the Ripken hometown of Aberdeen Md. as well as Myrtle Beach, Sc and Pigeon Forge, Tn. In addition, they run Ripken Select Tournaments and week-long experiences and camps for kids with a passion for the game.
Ripken also operates Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen that is home to the Aberdeen IronBirds, (www.IronBirdsBaseball.com) a Class A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles.
In December 2015, Ripken was named Special Adviser to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred on youth programs and outreach. In this role, Ripken advises the Commissioner and MLB’s Youth Programs Department regarding strategies and initiatives designed to grow the sports of baseball and softball at the amateur and youth levels.
In the fall of 2007, Ripken was named as a Special Public Diplomacy Envoy to the U.S. State Department. that role he traveled the globe and uses baseball as a tool to spread goodwill. October of 2007, he traveled to China with former teammate B.J. Surhoff in this role and in November of 2008, he visited Nicaragua with former teammate and Nicaraguan native Dennis Martinez. November of 2011, he and former teammate Brady Anderson visited Japan and spent time with the children impacted by the great earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of Japan in March of 2011.
Ripken’s most recent diplomacy trip came in March of 2018 when he visited Prague and surrounding areas in the Czech Republic to advance the cause of baseball and help its meteoric rise in that country.
Ripken is also a best-selling author and a highly sought-after public speaker. His 12 books have all landed on various best-seller lists including The Only Way I Know; Play Baseball The Way; Parenting Young Athletes The Ripken Way; The Longest Season, Get In The Game: 8 Elements of Perseverance That Make The Difference; and Just Show Up and Other Enduring Values from Baseball’s Iron Man. In the spring of 2011, he launched a series of youth novels with a baseball theme through Disney Book Group. The sixth and final book in the series was released in 2016.
Ripken has always placed a strong focus on giving back to the community. In 2001, he and his family established the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation (www.RipkenFoundation.org) in memory of the family’s patriarch. The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization serving underserved communities nationwide. Since its inception the foundation has impacted over 10 million kids in underserved communities. They have constructed and gifted over 100 Youth Development Parks, multi-purpose fields that provide kids with safe places to play and learn and, created over 100 STEM Centers in elementary and middle schools across the country and created the impactful Badges for Baseball program that brings law enforcement and youth together in positive and engaging ways.
Due to his success in business and his business acumen Ripken previously sat on the Board of Directors of ZeniMax, one of the video game industries biggest publishers and is currently a member of the Advisory Board of DraftKings, the worldwide leader in sports gaming.
The many on-field accolades that Cal received during his illustrious playing career include: AL Rookie of the Year (’82), two-time AL Most Valuable Player (’83, ’91), two-time Gold Glove recipient (’91, ’92), two-time All-Star MVP (’91, ’01), a world record 2,632 consecutive games and 19 All-Star Game selections. In addition, his 2,131st consecutive game was voted by fans as MLB’s “Most memorable Moment” in baseball history and Cal was named to the MLB All-Century Team at shortstop.
Luis Tellez spent the early part of his career working in the chemical industry, and subsequently spent over twenty years administering several non-profit corporations before becoming president of the Witherspoon Institute in 2003. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the James Madison program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. Mr. Tellez received a BS and MS in chemical engineering as well as an MBA in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis.
Tyler J. VanderWeele is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Director of the Human Flourishing Program and Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Religion and Spirituality at Harvard University. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University in mathematics, philosophy, theology, finance, and biostatistics. His methodological research is focused on theory and methods for distinguishing between association and causation in the biomedical and social sciences and, more recently, on psychosocial measurement theory. His empirical research spans psychiatric and social epidemiology; the science of happiness and flourishing; and the study of religion and health. He is the recipient of the 2017 Presidents’ Award from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS). He has published over four hundred papers in peer-reviewed journals; is author of the books Explanation in Causal Inference (2015), Modern Epidemiology (2021), and Measuring Well-Being (2021); and he also writes a monthly blog posting on topics related to human flourishing for Psychology Today.
Candace Vogler is the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Philosophy and Professor in the College at the University of Chicago, Professor of Philosophy at the Royal Institute of Philosophy, and Chair of Virtue Theory for the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues in England. She has authored two books, John Stuart Mill's Deliberative Landscape: An essay in moral psychology and Reasonably Vicious, and essays in ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy and literature, cinema, psychoanalysis, gender studies, sexuality studies, and other areas. Her research interests are in practical philosophy (particularly the strand of work in moral philosophy indebted to Elizabeth Anscombe), practical reason, Kant's ethics, Marx, and neo-Aristotelian naturalism.
Arthur Wiser is a family medicine physician practicing in rural Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Dr. Wiser received his MD from the Albany College of Medicine, and completed a residency in Family Medicine at the Albany Medical Center and affiliated hospitals. He studied under Dr. Paul McHugh at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2016. Dr. Wiser is an editor at large for Plough Quarterly.
Leadership
Director: Margaret S. Chisolm, M.D. | Associate Director: Paul R. McHugh, M.D.
Funding for the McHugh Program currently comes from private foundations and philanthropic contributions. Make a gift.
Contact Us
To learn more about the Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing and to get involved with any of our educational activities, please contact:
Director Margaret Chisolm at [email protected] or 410-550-9744
Dr. Chisolm can also be contacted via Twitter @whole_patients