The Yeo Writing Prize Selection Committee
Karen Alexander is an Assistant Professor in the Jefferson College of Nursing, with a secondary appointment in the Department of OB/GYN, Sidney Kimmel Medical College. As a Jefferson alum (BSN ’05, MSN ’09) and nurse for the last 16 years, she is deeply invested in ensuring healthcare delivery is accessible and equitable to all people who need it. To this end, she recently published a narrative medicine piece in JAMA, detailing her own personal story of grief and how it relates to the stigma and bias experienced by marginalized groups of women.
Dr. Orlando C. Kirton is Chairman of Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief at Abington Jefferson Health.
Dr. Kirton received his undergraduate degree from Brown University in Providence, RI and his medical degree, cum laude, from Harvard Medical School. He served his internship and residency in surgery at SUNY and then completed fellowships in surgical critical care and surgery of trauma at Jackson Memorial Hospital, Department of Surgery and University of Miami School of medicine in Florida. He joined the faculty at the University of Miami from 1992-1999 where he achieved the Academic Rank of Associate Professor of Surgery and served as the Director of the Trauma Intensive Care Unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital and served as the Interim Director of the Trauma Service.
From 1999-2016 Dr. Kirton was the Ludwig J. Pyrtek, MD Chair in Surgery, Chief of the Department of Surgery, Chief of the Division of General Surgery, and Associate Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. He also was Chief of Trauma at Hartford Hospital from 2012-2016.
Dr. Kirton’s current Academic Rank is that of Professor of Surgery and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Surgery of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University.
Dr. Kirton is a Diplomat of the American Board of Surgery with additional qualification in Surgical Critical Care. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American College of Critical Care Medicine, and the American College of Chest Physicians, and member of the Society of University Surgeons and the American Surgical Association. In 2014 the Society of Critical Care medicine bestowed him the Master of Critical Care medicine distinction. Dr. Kirton has served as President of the Surgical Section of the National Medical Association, the President of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons, and was also past President of the Connecticut Chapter of the American College of Surgeons. He served on the Boards of Directors for the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the National Medical Association, the Society of Black Academic Surgeons and the Board of Managers of The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma. Dr. Kirton Received a Physician Executive MBA from the University of Tennessee in 2015. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed, referred journals as well as authored numerous chapters and textbooks on Surgical Critical Care, Trauma, and Surgical Education.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Dr. Karyn Butler was born in New York City and received her B.S. from Tuskegee University and her M.D. from Morehouse School of Medicine. She completed her surgical training at Howard University Hospital and then served as a Trauma/Critical Care Fellow at UMD-New Jersey Medical School, followed by a two-year stint as a NIH Trauma Research Fellow at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She has held academic appointments at Morehouse School of Medicine, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Connecticut Health Science Center (UCONN). She is the former Division Chief of Surgical Critical Care at Hartford Hospital and was the former Program Director for the UCONN Surgical Critical Care fellowship for nine years. She is currently Medical Director of Surgical Critical Care at Abington Jefferson Health and Professor of Surgery at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.
Dr. Butler has won many awards for teaching and research, has served on multiple study sections for the NIH and military funding mechanisms, and has over 100 peer-reviewed articles, abstracts and media reports and scientific presentations. She is the past recipient of six extramural grant awards from agencies including the NIH and American Heart Association, has served as the principal investigator for numerous IRB approved clinical research projects.
Dr. Butler is a member of many prestigious societies and has served on numerous national committees and has mentored medical students, residents, and fellows who have pursued academic careers in Acute Care Surgery. She has been a leader in the integration of teams to improve the quality of care in the ICU.
Dr. Butler has two children, a son who is a chef and a daughter who is doing graduate work in psychology.
Stefanie Karp is Director of Public Safety at Jefferson East Falls
Martha (Marty) Romney, BSN, MS, JD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Jefferson College of Population Health (JCPH), where she teaches Foundations of Policy and Advocacy, Public Health Law and Ethics, Cultural Humility and Competency in Population Health and Health Services in the Masters of Public Health program and Bioethics in the Population Health Science PhD program. Her research and publications focus on social determinants of health, health disparities, social justice, reducing chronic illness, employee health, and she is on the editorial boards of Population Health Management and the American Journal of Public Health. Marty is the Chair of the JPCH DEI Workgroup and represents the college on the TJU Action Council.
Brittany File is a fourth year medical student at Sidney Kimmel Medical College with an interest in Obstetrics and Gynecology. She graduated with dual majors in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and Philosophy from Emory University in 2017, where she primarily studied ALS from the research bench. With an interest in narrative medicine, Brittany wrote a book of poetry while in medical school entitled Stop Requested: A Collection of ALS Poetry. The collection details intimate accounts of confusion, suffering, fight, hope, and change that ALS patients experience during their disease progression, and aims to build empathy within the medical field and community for those experiencing ALS.
Kathryn Gindlesparger is an Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Thomas Jefferson University, where she directs the Writing Program. Her work has been published in College English, Writing Program Administration, Peitho, and the Community Literacy Journal. She is a currently researching the reception of classical rhetoric in higher education governance.