Program Description:

The objective of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program at Yale University is to prepare a select group of physicians to be leaders in improving the nation’s health and health care. Scholars are taught to generate knowledge and insights and translate research into action at the local, state and national levels. The Yale program enables Scholars to gain competence in clinical and health services research methods, biostatistics, health policy and management, community-based research, and leadership.

Through curricular programs that are tailored to their needs, Scholars learn to work effectively across disciplines; think creatively and rigorously about health care issues; lead organizational change; participate in policy development; collaborate in projects to improve community health; and, ultimately, to generate ideas and make scholarly contributions that will improve health and health care. Long-standing relationships with community organizations in the New Haven area, fostered by Yale faculty and Clinical Scholars alumni, afford current Scholars ample opportunities to participate in community-based projects. They will also meet with national leaders involved in health care delivery, including operations, policy-making, advocacy, government and research. Yale University offers rich and varied resources that foster the creation of a unique experience for each Scholar, including close linkages with faculty and programs at the School of Medicine and the Schools of Public Health, Nursing, Law, and Management, and the Graduate School.

Directors

Harlan M. Krumholz, M.D.

Harlan M. Krumholz MD, SM, is the Director of the Yale Program where he also teaches and provides extensive mentoring to Scholars. Dr. Krumholz is the Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Public Health. Dr. Krumholz received his MD from Harvard Medical School and an SM in Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. He did his training in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and in cardiology at Beth Israel in Boston. He serves as Director of the Yale-New Haven Health Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE).

Dr. Krumholz is a member of many national committees focused on quality of care issues. He chairs the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) Joint Committee on Performance Measures for the Care of Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction, and was a member of the ACC/AHA Writing Committee for Guidelines for Patients with ST-Segment Elevation AMI. He is former chair of the AHA/ACC Annual Scientific Forum on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke. Dr. Krumholz is a board member of the Society of Geriatric Cardiology and is on the Executive Council of the Heart Failure Society of America. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.


Georgina Lucas, MSW

Georgina Lucas, MSW is Deputy Director of the Program and Director for the Program's Community Research Initiatives. She brings a strong track record of leadership in the academic, nonprofit, public, and private sectors. She was the founding director of the Center for Innovative Practice at Smith College Graduate School for Social Work where she worked with faculty, doctoral students, and local, state, and national organizations in implementing applied research and training programs to improve mental health services to underserved populations.

Ms. Lucas served as the Staff Director of the Connecticut Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Public and Private Responsibilities for Financing Long Term Care. This commission was responsible for establishing the Connecticut Partnership for Long Term Care, a collaboration between the Connecticut Department of Medicaid and the insurance industry. The Connecticut Partnership model was subsequently replicated in other states. She has also held executive positions in the private sector managing a national community-based care management program for frail elderly, managing Travelers long-term care insurance division, the Travelers national and community affairs division and their corporate philanthropic foundation.



Rani Desai, PhD, MPH

Rani Desai, PhD, MPH is Co-director of the Program and is the liaison to the Veterans Administration (VA). She also coordinates the Biostatistics course and is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University School of Medicine. She received both her MPH in chronic disease epidemiology, and her PhD in mental health services research and psychiatric epidemiology from Yale University. Dr. Desai serves as Associate Director of the Northeast Program Evaluation Center, the evaluation arm of mental health services for the VA, and is the head of the Women and Trauma Core of Women's Health Research at Yale.

At the national policy level, Dr. Desai works with the VA Office of Mental Health Services in VA Central Office and serves as the national program evaluator for VA treatment of PTSD and programs for homeless female veterans. She is also the program evaluator for mental health programs exclusively serving returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. She has served on several advisory committees to the VA on the mental health needs of female veterans, with particular attention to military sexual trauma. 

Dr. Desai’s academic research utilizes principles of psychiatric epidemiology and services research to examine risk factors and correlates of several psychiatric disorders, with particular attention paid to co-occurring disorders. This research has included studies on pathological gambling and other impulse control disorders, schizophrenia, substance abuse/dependence, the risk of suicide in psychiatric patients, trauma and comorbidity, criminal justice mental health, the mental health problems experienced by the homeless, and the effects of trauma across the life span.

Cary Gross, MD

Cary Gross, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine (General Medicine) and Co-director of the Yale Program. Dr. Gross completed his residency in Internal Medicine at New York Hospital - Cornell Medical Center and served as chief medical resident at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center the following year. As a former Scholar, Dr. Gross has advanced training in biostatistics, epidemiology, research ethics, and outcomes research. He is an active investigator, and mentors Clinical Scholars, residents, and medical students in a variety of scholarly projects.

The over-arching theme of his work is the disconnect between evidence generated from clinical research and the actual needs of patients. Dr. Gross has focused his research on exploring ethical issues in the conduct of research, as well as understanding cancer in vulnerable populations. He has examined clinical trial participation and the impact of chronic illness on colorectal cancer screening, treatment patterns, and outcomes, and has received federal, institutional, and foundation grants to explore these issues. After documenting that older persons are disproportionately excluded from clinical research, Dr. Gross also demonstrated that applying trial results to patients who were above the age limit of trial eligibility was associated with a higher risk of harm. These findings led to work addressing the impact of non-cancer health conditions on quality of care, preferences, and outcomes. Ongoing investigations focus on the impact of comorbidity on cancer outcomes, as well as temporal and geographic variation in racial disparities in cancer treatment. Dr. Gross’s work has been published in leading journals including JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, and Annals of Internal Medicine. He has published commentaries in Lancet and JAMA, and is a recipient of a “Paper of the Year Award” from the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy.


Marjorie Rosenthal, MD, MPH

Marjorie Rosenthal, MD, MPH is an Assistant Director of the Program and Assistant Director for the Program’s Community Research Initiative. She is a former RWJ Clinical Scholar from both Yale and the University of North Carolina. She is an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Rosenthal's work has focused on barriers and facilitators to improving health education and health behavior for young, vulnerable families; this has led her to study quality improvement in physicians' offices, parental literacy, maternal mental health, and childcare. Dr. Rosenthal joined the faculty in July 2005.

Joseph S. Ross, MD, MHS

Joseph S. Ross, MD, MHS, is an Assistant Professor in the Section of General Internal Medicine. He completed his undergraduate degrees in biological science: neuroscience and psychology at the University of Rochester and his medical degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After completing his post-graduate training in primary care internal medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, Dr. Ross was a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program at Yale University, earning a Master’s degree in health sciences research. He was awarded a Paul B. Beeson Career Development Award in Aging Research from the National Institute on Aging in 2008. Using health services research methods, Dr. Ross’s research focuses on examining factors which affect the use or delivery of recommended ambulatory care services for older adults and other vulnerable populations, evaluating the impact of state and federal policies on the delivery of appropriate and higher quality care, and issues related to conflict of interest, medical professionalism, and drug safety. Dr. Ross continues to collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team of investigators under contract for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to develop statistical models that are used to measure and publicly report hospital clinical outcomes using administrative data.



Marcella Nunez Smith, MD, MHS

Marcella Nunez Smith, MD, MHS is an Assistant Director of the Program, teaching elements of the qualitative curriculum and working on scholar recruitment. She is a former RWJ Clinical Scholar from Yale and is an Assistant Professor in the Section of General Internal Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Nunez Smith conducts research on healthcare workforce diversity, cancer disparities, and the role of media on health. Dr. Nunez Smith joined the faculty in 2006.

Kendall Getek, Program Administrator

Dolores Roller, Senior Administrative Assistant

Barbara Robichaud, Senior Administrative Assistant

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program
Yale University School of Medicine
333 Cedar Street
P.O. Box 208088
New Haven, CT 06520-8025

(203) 785-4148

http://rwjcsp.yale.edu

http://info.med.yale.edu/intmed/rwjcsp

E-mail:  rwjscholars@yale.edu