Penn Bioethics Seminar | Jennifer Kesselheim, MD, M.Ed, MBE

Jennifer C. Kesselheim, MD, M.Ed, MBE
Fellowship Program Co-Director & Senior Physician, Boston Children's/Dana-Farber Cancer and Blood Disorders Center
Director, Master of Medical Sciences (MMSc) in Medical Education
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Humanism and Professionalism Training for Pediatric Trainees: A Play in 3 Acts
Dr. Jennifer Kesselheim attended college at the University of Wisconsin and then completed her MD degree at the University of Pennsylvania.  While at Penn, she earned a Masters degree in medical ethics.  Following medical school, she completed residency training in the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics, based at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center.  As a resident, Dr. Kesselheim developed curricula to integrate bioethics education into her residency program and she began to conduct national studies to assess the outcomes of ethics education in pediatric training.  Her focus at the interface of ethics, professionalism, and medical education led her to pursue a Master’s degree in education from Harvard which she completed while a fellow in pediatric hematology-oncology at Boston Children’s and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
 
As an educator, Dr. Kesselheim now co-directs the pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship at Boston Children’s and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  She also directs the Master of Medical Sciences (MMSc) in Medical Education based at Harvard Medical School which is a two-year graduate program blending formal coursework in medical education with a mentored research thesis.  Dr. Kesselheim’s own research investigates the methods and outcomes of physician education in the areas of humanism, ethics and professionalism.  Her research projects pertain to the measurement of humanism skills among trainees, integrating interprofessional education into medical student training, fostering ownership and accountability in patient care, balancing service and education during training, the hidden curriculum of speaking up, assessing knowledge of ethical principles among pediatricians and pediatric ethicists, and measuring the impact of social media on medical professionalism. She was recently selected as a 2017 Macy Faculty Scholar and was chosen to join the Pediatric Residency Review Committee for the ACGME.  She has co-chaired the Ethics Advisory Committee at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  Dr. Kesselheim lives in Boston with her husband, son Max (age 10), daughter Sydney (age 5), and son Leo (age 2).