Vineet Arora AM 2003

In her position as a hospitalist(1) researcher and Assistant Dean for Curricular Innovation at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, Vineet Arora considers the biggest difference she makes in students' lives to be exposing them to career possibilities that integrate medicine and social science.

Dedicated to advancing the study of behavioral, social, and cultural factors that affect healthcare issues such as rates of disease and quality of patient care, Arora also serves as chair of the resident and fellow section of the American College of Physicians, representing 22,000 internal medicine trainees at various national conferences and in meetings with legislators. In all of her professional roles, Arora advocates for the inclusion of the social sciences in medical training.

Arora's own career is a product of the integration of these two spheres. After graduating from the Washington University School of Medicine, she completed her internal medicine residency at the University of Chicago Hospitals and sought another dimension to her education. "After a lot of thought and guidance, I knew that I needed to get additional training, particularly in health outcomes research and policy, to design and work on these types of projects" Arora says. "My training at the Harris School definitely made that possible."

Although the Harris School provided her with extensive training in quantitative analysis and evaluating health care quality that Arora uses regularly in her research, it was the exploration of theories that debate why people behave the way they do in certain situations that she values most today. "It's that fundamental approach to social science that often, I think, helps me the most when I am thinking about problems in medicine."

This approach is reflected in a current project of particular interest to Arora. The Training Early Achievers for Career in Health (TEACH) Research project puts highly achieving minority Chicago public high school students from the Collegiate Scholars program in contact with participants in the Hospitalist Project at the University of Chicago. University undergraduates, medical students, residents, and faculty share their experiences in health-related research with these students. "Together," says Arora, "we are using novel methodologies to examine the extent to which exposure to practical career experience coupled with strong academic guidance can help minority students consider and prepare for careers in fields where they are underrepresented."

Reflecting on her own journey, Arora says that as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins she in no way anticipated her present career, although she recognizes that she was always interested in public health. As she says, "One thing I knew that I enjoyed was identifying and making systems change to make things work better." Arora now hopes to continue her work in medicine and education. Specifically, she seeks to design and implement programs that improve trainee education and patient care. "There is an increasing emphasis on social science education and research in medical education, and that is an important area that I can help students learn about."

(1) A hospitalist is a physician who specializes in caring for patients while they are in the hospital, and who often has little or no outpatient practice.