Question: What do the following have in common?
The rolling fields of Folly Farm, the beautiful Baltimore County home of Stephanie Cooper Greenberg, chair of CIM’s International Advisory Board. The conference room table in the office of CIM Director David Hellmann. A Zoom screen. The faculty dining room at Bayview Medical Center.
Answer: All are venues where CIM faculty and friends have gathered over the years, in groups large and small, to hatch exciting ideas, forge powerful new collaborations, explore what it means to be human and, more often than not, to dream big — all fueled by a shared vision to advance medicine as a public trust.
These gatherings are key to what makes CIM unique within the wider Johns Hopkins universe, and so valuable, say longtime Hopkins leaders.
“Hopkins is a collection of like-minded individuals; however, we are not organized ideally to facilitate group interactions,” observes Vice Dean for Education Roy Ziegelstein, the Sarah Miller Coulson and Frank L. Coulson, Jr. Professor of Medicine. “Many of us may only rarely have the occasion to speak to each other. It limits the ability for Hopkins to be even more impactful.
“I think the real benefit, the ‘secret sauce,’ to me of CIM, is its ability to bridge unconnected networks and groups and individuals for the betterment of what we do at Hopkins — and beyond,” adds Ziegelstein. “Through CIM, I’ve met colleagues I never would have otherwise interacted with. I’ve learned about their work and found collaborations.”
Among CIM’s notable regular convening events:
Book Club Discussion
At the twice annual directors’ meetings at Bayview, held over dinner during Hellmann’s long tenure as director of the Department of Medicine, the second portion of the evening was devoted to discussion of a literary work — including classics in poetry, history and fiction.
David Wu, director of palliative care at Bayview, who was invited to lead a book discussion on Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich in early 2020, recalled it as “a powerful example of how a work of literature can cut through a lot of the facades of regular life and get right down to the heart of big questions: of life and death, of loss and suffering, of love and God, and of what’s truly important.”
CIM Seminars
When Hellmann first launched the CIM Seminars series, the meetings were held in his office at Johns Hopkins Bayview. This limited participation to just 25 or 30 people — primarily fellow doctors with expertise and interest in the seminar topic. Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Hellmann moved the seminar series online, which opened the door to vastly expand the list of invitees and speakers.
“We’ve gone from a few dozen people in my office to sometimes more than 200 or 250 people participating online,” says Hellmann. “And we’ve been able to invite a much broader array of participants, including patients, donors and former faculty members who want to stay connected to Johns Hopkins and informed about the latest research and findings in clinical care.”
Most of the speakers are CIM Scholars who provide fascinating updates on their work. In addition, other faculty member whose work epitomizes the CIM philosophy that “medicine is a public trust” have participated, including Henry Brem, the Harvey Cushing Professor and director of neurosurgery; Patrick Walsh, former longtime director of the Brady Urological Institute: Justin McArthur, the John W. Griffin Professor and director of the Department of Neurology; Jimmy Potash, the Henry Phipps Professor and director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Peter Agre, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Sarah Szanton, the Patricia Davidson Professor and dean of the School of Nursing; and Alfred Sommer, winner of the prestigious Lasker Award (known as “America’s Nobel”) and former longtime dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
CIM Annual Retreat
Since 2014, CIM has sponsored a late summer retreat at Folly Farm, a 100-acre rural villa in northern Baltimore County that is the home of Stephanie Cooper Greenberg, chair of CIM’s International Advisory Board, and husband Erwin L. Greenberg. It is here that CIM faculty and leaders from across Johns Hopkins Medicine come together to talk and dream about what’s next for CIM.
The 2021 and 2022 annual retreats proved fertile ground, for example, in planting the seeds for CIM’s far-reaching Initiative for Humanizing Medicine. “We’re able to offer a rural setting that’s beautiful and calming, where you can breathe the country air. That’s when the ideas can start to flow!” says Stephanie Greenberg.
