Celebrating the 2024 Emerging Physician Leader Award and Sadler Fellowship recipients
Introducing our 2024 Emerging Physician Leader Award recipients
The Emerging Physician Leader Award, established by the Health Care Without Harm Physician Network in 2018, recognizes medical students, residents, and fellows who have demonstrated a passion for sustainable health care or a commitment to climate and health leadership. Awardees receive complimentary registration to CleanMed and a grant to support a project that aligns with the goals of the Physician Network. This year, the award is offered in collaboration with the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Join us in celebrating this year’s Emerging Physician Leader awardees chosen from a large, exceptionally strong, and talented applicant pool.
Dr. Sarah Schear
Sarah Schear, M.D., M.S., is a pediatric resident at Children’s National Hospital and an incoming pediatric palliative care fellow at the University of Utah Health. She was selected for her proven track record in climate leadership. Schear has supported medical trainee involvement, co-founded Medical Students for a Sustainable Future and Climate Health Now, and is completing an adaptation of the Planetary Health Report Card to help residents and fellows advance climate mitigation and resilience at their hospitals and health systems.
For her project, she is going to pilot the new Planetary Health Report Card in graduate medical training programs with trainees in the United States and multiple countries.
“I am honored to receive this award from an organization I admire deeply. I can't wait to attend CleanMed and build relationships with colleagues committed to environmental stewardship and equitable transformation of our health care system. Health professional trainees around the world are sparking advocacy for sustainable health systems, and I'm grateful for Health Care Without Harm's support of trainee leadership.”
Genevieve Silva
Genevieve Silva, B.S., is an M.D. and M.B.A. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School, a former Environmental Defense Fund Fellow, and an inaugural ClimateCAP MBA Fellow. She was selected for the numerous ways she has taken action to address the climate crisis and advance climate-smart health care, including serving on the founding board of Medical Students for a Sustainable Future and hosting the podcast Code Green: The Climate Smart Health Professional, along with her commitment to prepare for a career that combines clinical practice with a sustainable health care leadership role.
For her project, she will be conducting a Scope 1-3 greenhouse gas inventory of a Penn Medicine outpatient dermatology practice and creating a template and roadmap to support other departments in the health system conduct comprehensive GHG inventories.
"It is a complete honor to receive the Emerging Physician Leader Award. With the generous support of Health Care Without Harm, I aim to develop a department-level carbon footprint analysis and report that can be leveraged to positively impact decarbonization within my home health system. I look forward to continuing this project and to learning from leaders in the world of health care sustainability at this year’s CleanMed conference."
Zachariah Tman
Zachariah Tman, M.P.H., a native of Yap in the West Pacific, is a medical student at UC San Diego School of Medicine, who recently took a gap year to study sustainability practices and the high incidence of squamous cell oral cancer in the Yap islands. He was selected for efforts to improve health and health care education in the West Pacific, along with his career goal to advance sustainable health care practices in both the Western world and the Pacific Islands, an area exceptionally vulnerable to climate change,
For his project, he will be creating a toolkit for UC San Diego Health and community health professionals that care for vulnerable populations facing climate change events such as wildfire smoke and extreme heat to help build community climate resilience.
“As a Pacific Islander, it is deeply humbling and a profound honor to receive this award to support my future endeavors to promote sustainable health care; endeavors that also benefit the Pacific and my home islands. I am immensely excited to attend CleanMed to meet and learn from inspiring leaders in this area, and renew my commitment to the shared responsibility of working towards climate-friendly, sustainable medicine. An earnest thank you to Health Care Without Harm for the mentorship and aiding in my project of creating clinician toolkits for climate change related weather events."
Introducing our 2024 Blair and Georgia Sadler Fellows
The Blair and Georgia Sadler Fellowship, established in 2022, provides an opportunity for a cohort of early-career clinicians to work together on equitable, climate-smart health care in their hospitals and communities with the support of subject matter experts and Health Care Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth partner health systems. Each year, fellows receive a scholarship to attend CleanMed and a $1,000 grant to complete a project that aims to demonstrate scalable solutions.
Join us in celebrating this year’s Blair and Georgia Sadler Fellowship awardees chosen from a large, exceptionally strong, and talented applicant pool.
Douglas Fritz
Douglas Fritz is an M.D. and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where he was awarded the University of Colorado President's Sustainability Challenge Award and is a member of the hospital's sustainability working group. He was selected for his passion for climate justice, interest in the intersection between climate change and viral illness, leadership as the vice–chair of Medical Students for a Sustainable Future, and commitment to empowering physicians to be climate advocates.
For his project, he will be developing an automatic electronic health record integrated patient climate risk and resiliency tool to coordinate care and shared decision-making.
“This award is an incredible opportunity for me to expand the impact of my work on climate change and health – I am honored to be recognized. By attending CleanMed, I will have the exciting opportunity to learn from leaders in the field and exchange ideas on how to advance climate-smart initiatives and center this information in clinical care. Climate change, social justice, and health are increasingly connected. Health care professionals like us need to be on the forefront of addressing it. With this award, I am thrilled to embark on my project, knowing that it will contribute to creating a healthier and more environmentally conscious future for patients and communities.”
Dr. Emaline Laney
Emaline Laney, M.D., achieved two master's degrees in science and is a global health equity and internal medicine resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She serves as the resident representative of the Department of Medicine Climate Advisory Board and leads the resident Climate Change Action Committee. She was selected for her extraordinary climate-related work as a medical student for which she was awarded the Emory University's Climate Innovator Award, along with her ongoing leadership as a resident, and determination to lead efforts to create health systems that are equitable, sustainable, and resilient.
For her project, she is going to create and pilot a climate vulnerability tool incorporated within the Electronic Health Record system at her primary care clinic with the goal of protecting the most climate-vulnerable patients and communities.
“Differential health outcomes are not random nor the result of one, but rather, many forces at play; so, too, are the drivers of climate change and the downstream effects on our patients. For this reason, I am grateful and honored to join Health Care Without Harm’s incredible community and attend CleanMed with the support of the Sadler Fellowship. In doing so, I am thrilled to learn from and with health professionals to co-create climate-health solutions, with a particular interest in harnessing primary care clinics’ untapped potential in identifying and addressing those most vulnerable to climate-sensitive health outcomes.”
Dr. Jamaji Nwanaji-Enwerem
Jamaji Nwanaji-Enwerem, M.D., Ph.D., and M.P.P., is an emergency medicine chief resident physician at Emory University School of Medicine and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. He was selected for his remarkable academic background, accomplishments, and the many honors he has received in this field. He has committed to continue his leadership efforts in education, research, clinical care, community service, and–one day–government with the goal to cultivate health care systems and a world where individuals need not endure personal illness to recognize the profound connection between their environment and their well-being.
For his project, he is going to conduct a comprehensive scoping literature review that examines the impact of emergency department paperless and electronic discharge practices and their associated quality metrics with a goal to reduce emergency department paper waste.
"I am grateful for this award, which gives me the opportunity to attend CleanMed and connect with the Health Care Without Harm community. While it is undeniable that climate change poses significant challenges, it also presents many opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations and transformative solutions. I look forward to continuing my contributions (including my fellowship project) alongside the efforts of others with the aims of improving patient care, fostering sustainable healthcare systems, and building a more environmentally just world."
Kali Smolen
Kali Smolen, Ph.D, is in the M.D. and Ph.D. program at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth where she has led many impactful sustainability initiatives and is creating a novel planetary health curriculum. She was selected for her passion for reducing health care waste and advancing climate-smart health care, along with her career goal to be a pediatrician-scientist with her own research lab focused on answering questions related to health care decarbonization.
For her project, she will conduct a life-cycle assessment to identify ways to reduce the climate impact of colonoscopies which rely heavily on single-use devices.
“In college, nothing went to waste when I worked on our campus' Sustainable Agriculture Project, but upon beginning an M.D.-Ph.D program, I was disappointed that the same principles of waste reduction and creative utilization were not widely accepted in our health care system. When I learned about Health Care Without Harm and CleanMed, I was immediately inspired by efforts to reduce waste and identify innovative solutions in the realm of climate-smart health care. I'm incredibly honored and excited to complete a waste reduction project as a Sadler Fellow and to meet others working in health care sustainability at CleanMed 2024.”
