Named Clerkship Director Appointments
We are delighted to announce that the School of Medicine has secured generous gifts to endow and name three of our Overall Core Clerkship Director positions. Laura K. Snydman, MD, FACP, Overall Core Clerkship Director in Medicine, has been appointed the inaugural Dean Harris A. Berman, MD, Clerkship Director. Jonathan (Jody) Schindelheim, MD, Overall Core Clerkship Director in Psychiatry, has been appointed the inaugural Hira and Toos Family Clerkship Director. Laurence (Larry) Brinckerhoff, MD, Overall Core Clerkship Director in Surgery, has been appointed the Donald Shapiro, MD, M71, and Karlyn Shapiro Clerkship Director.
Our clerkship directors play an indispensable role in preparing Tufts medical students to become excellent physicians. They ensure quality and continuity in clinical education within and across our many teaching sites. In an effort to elevate the status of these important positions—like we already do with named and endowed professorships—it is the School’s goal to eventually endow all six Overall Core Clerkship Directorships. We are excited to partner with supporters toward this goal.
Dean Harris A. Berman, MD, Clerkship Director Laura Snydman graduated from the School of Medicine in 2004, completed her residency in internal medicine at Tufts Medical Center, and currently splits her time between practicing primary care and teaching and mentoring medical students. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine and became the Site Director of the third- and fourth-year internal medicine clerkships at Tufts Medical Center in 2013. In April 2019 she was appointed the Overall Core Clerkship Director, where she oversees 12 hospital sites for the third-year medicine clerkship. She has won multiple faculty recognition awards, including the 2018 Dr. Jack Mitus Special Faculty Recognition Award, the 2016 Outstanding Teaching in the Clerkship Years Award, and the 2015 Julius ‘Red’ Kritzman Award for Primary Care Teaching. In 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020, the graduating classes nominated her to receive an Excellence in Teaching Award. Laura was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society as a faculty member in 2015 and was the invited Faculty Marshall for Commencement Exercises in 2016 and 2018.
Hira and Toos Family Clerkship Director Jody Schindelheim is currently Vice Chairman of Medical Education and Residency Training at Tufts Medical Center and a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine. He is a graduate of Carleton College and Northwestern University Medical School. Jody received his postgraduate training in internal medicine at Boston City Hospital and in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Tufts–New England Medical Center. He completed psychoanalytic training at the Psychoanalytic Institute of New England, East. Dr. Schindelheim has been the Director of the first-year TUSM course “Medical Interviewing and the Doctor-Patient Relationship” and Clerkship Director for Psychiatry since the early 1980s, as well as the Program Director for the General Psychiatry Residency at Tufts Medical Center since 2001. He has been recognized as a leader in medical education at both the local and national levels with teaching awards from the School of Medicine, the Department of Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Donald Shapiro, MD, M71, and Karlyn Shapiro Clerkship Director Larry Brinckerhoff came to Tufts Medical Center in 2004 after completing his MD at Dartmouth Medical School, general surgical training at the University of Virginia, and cardiothoracic training at the University of Colorado Medical Center. He became the Surgery Clerkship Site Director at Tufts Medical Center and the school’s Overall Core Clerkship Director for Surgery in 2011, overseeing seven different rotation sites. Larry has won multiple faculty recognition awards including the first Dean’s Outstanding Mentor Award, the Outstanding Core Clerkship Director Award, and the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award. He was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society as a faculty member in 2017. Larry is dedicated to enhancing medical students’ education and to encouraging each student to become the best physician possible.
The School will celebrate these gifts and appointments during a virtual ceremony on Monday, December 14 at 4pm. All are welcome; please register here. Please join me in congratulating Laura, Jody and Larry, and in thanking our supporters!