Alireza Shamshirsaz (09R–obstetrics and gynecology) ranks among the world’s foremost experts in fetal surgery and in the treatment of abnormally adherent placenta, a rare pregnancy complication also known as placenta accreta spectrum. He has pioneered novel surgical techniques for neural tube defects and twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, and he was part of the team that performed the first successful fetoscopic repair to treat spina bifida in the U.S. Shamshirsaz is board certified in OB-GYN and maternal fetal medicine and an appointed reviewer of 22 medical journals. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts in English language journals and 18 in Farsi. Shamshirsaz serves as director of the Maternal Fetal Medicine Care Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, part of Harvard Medical School.

Jeremy Cauwels’ (02MD) leadership and advocacy have redefined the patient experience at Sanford Health System, the nation’s largest rural nonprofit health care system. He was recognized as a leader early in his career when, after completing his internal medicine residency at the University of Kansas Medical School in 2005, he was selected to lead the program the following year. In 2014, he became the director of the hospitalist program at Sanford, where he doubled the size of the program. Now as chief physician at Sanford, his colleagues look to him as a role model of patient-focused care.

Janet Schlechte’s (78R, 81F–internal medicine) clinical research on the relationship between prolactinomas and bone loss has shaped the understanding of how the endocrine and skeletal systems interact, garnering her invitations to present at conferences around the world. In 1996, Schlechte was elected to the most prestigious academic medical society in North America, the Association of American Physicians, and later she became the only woman among a handful of Iowans to be selected as Master of the American College of Physicians. She is a professor emerita in the UI Department of Internal Medicine.

Sharon Goodwin Fogleman (82MD) has dedicated her career to medical missions in Kenya, rural Appalachia, South Sudan, Uganda, and Ghana. She and her husband began their medical work in 1987 at Maua Methodist Hospital in rural Kenya, joining the medical staff there to provide medical care and mentorship. After 10 years, they moved back to the U.S. to work at Red Bird Clinic in rural Kentucky for 14 years, after which they returned to work in Africa. From 2012 on, Fogleman worked to provide health education and resources to combat malnutrition, malaria, and infectious disease in a region of central South Sudan alongside local government health care workers. When civil war led millions to seek refuge in Uganda, the Foglemans trained community health promoters, pastors, and lay workers in trauma healing within the refugee camps. Now living in the U.S., she continues to travel internationally to work with vulnerable populations and mentor health care workers and students.

Recently hired early-career faculty of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine have had their initial leadership and faculty development impacted by the pandemic. This course will provide “pandemic-informed” health care, medical education, and research leadership skills to succeed at the Carver College of Medicine in this fast-paced new environment.

Though many of Adriana's family members in Puerto Rico are in medicine, she only began to imagine herself in a health career after a professor inspired her to pursue it. Then, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico.

Peggy Nopoulos, MD, is a triple threat in the world of academic medicine as a clinician, researcher, and mentor.

Yumeng (“Yumi”) Engelking grew up in Chaozhou, a small city in southeast China. At the age of 11, she developed a disorder that caused significant hair loss. Though the illness wasn’t life threatening, it was detrimental to her self-image, and that experience has shaped the way she views specialty care in medicine.

Sierra Sheets’ interest in medicine began at a life-changing visit with her own medical provider when she was in high school.

Stephanie Meza is excited to learn about Iowa’s communities and how she can leverage her own experience to help Iowans. “The challenges I went through developed in me an ability to find a way out of no way," Meza says. “It’s given me the confidence and tenacity to solve problems that seem unsolvable.”