Episode 153. Rana Dershowitz, A Career Driven by Passion from Sports Law and Public Policy
The 92 Report
Rana Dershowitz went straight to Harvard Law School after graduating in 1992, partly due to the economy and her love for learning. She describes her experience at Harvard Law School, including her role as a law school "old timer" in Cambridge. After law school, Rana moved back to New York and started working on Wall Street, initially hating the big law environment but appreciating the people she worked with. Entertainment Law at Madison Square Garden and onto Sports Law Rana discusses her career counselor's advice to explore sports law, which she had overlooked despite her involvement in...
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152. Eugene Kim, Pediatric Surgeon and Wine Connoisseur
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Eugene Kim shares his post-graduation journey staying in Boston to finish research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute which was part of his thesis and also laid down the groundwork for his own cancer research which he has conducted over the years. He credits his understanding of science to his time at Harvard. He also worked at the now-closed Love the Border Cafe. Eugene reflects on the valuable lessons learned from working at the cafe and describes the unique subculture of the cafe's staff, including the Brazilian kitchen staff and the diverse backgrounds of the waiters and...
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151. Jonathan Hughes, Consulting at the Intersection of Strategy & Conflict Management
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Jonathan Hughes talks about his career in consulting, starting with an economic consulting firm, Putnam Hayes and Bartlett, in Los Angeles. He mentions his connection back to Harvard through CMI (Conflict Management Inc.) founded by Roger Fisher and Bruce Patton, and his subsequent roles at Vantage Partners and BDO. The Career Path As a Consultant Jonathan describes his role at CMI, focusing on complex negotiations and business partnerships, and his role in helping to start the boutique firm, Vantage Partners where he spent around 25 years as a partner. He later moved over to BDO,...
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150. Steve Petersen, From Improv to Philosophy of AI
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Steve recounts his senior year at Harvard, and how he was torn between pursuing acting and philosophy. He graduated with a dual degree in philosophy and math but also found time to act in theater and participated in 20 shows. A Love of Theater and a Move to London Steve explains why the lack of a theater major at Harvard allowed him to explore acting more than a university with a theater major. He touches on his parents' concerns about his career prospects if he pursued acting, and his decision to apply to both acting and philosophy graduate schools. Steve discusses his...
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149. P.J. Karafiol, Chicago Public High School Principal
The 92 Report
Show Notes: P.J. shares the backstory of his name and how he became a high school principal. He studied simultaneously in law school for a JD and in the Philosophy department for a PhD at the University of Chicago. After realizing he didn't enjoy law or philosophy, he taught math at Phillips Andover and later in Chicago. He helped start a new public school, Walter Payton College Prep, and has been a principal at Lake View High School for the past 10 years. Teaching Chaos Theory and Math P.J. describes his experience teaching at Phillips Andover, including teaching chaos theory. He found the...
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148. Scott Cole, 50+ Jobs Worked Since Harvard
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Scott Cole describes his initial struggles at Harvard, dropping out after freshman year, and returning multiple times before finally graduating in 2012. He shares his first dropout experience, including a brief stint in California and a return to Harvard for sophomore year. He details his various jobs and adventures, including working at a car wash, landscaping, and a research assistant position at Harvard Forest. Working on a Ranch in Wyoming Scott thinks back to his days working at a ranch in Wyoming, where he learned cowboy skills and participated in cattle drives. He...
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147. Anca Miruna Achim, Teaching about the Past to Speculate about the Future in Mexico City
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Miruna studied art history at Harvard, focusing on Renaissance art. After taking a year off to travel and visit Romania, she decided to study Latin American Studies and Spanish and Portuguese at Yale. She found the graduate experience at Yale challenging, especially the sense of isolation that can come with graduate work when it is not socially or politically involved. Miruna began traveling to Mexico for her research on colonial Latin America, focusing on the intersection of history of science, literature, and ritual. Teaching History of Science Miruna moved to Mexico City, where...
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146. Franklin Habit, A Long and Winding Yarn
The 92 Report
Show Notes:Franklin Habit talks about working in higher education administration (and elsehwere) before eventually finding happiness in his current profession within the fiber arts. He discusses some of the blind alleys he explored, including museum work, opera stage directing, web design, and online marketing. Building a Career in KnittingFranklin shares how he learned to knit from a veteran knitter and classmate, Eliza Lake. He describes how his blog about knitting took off, leading to a book deal and a career in teaching and writing. Franklin recounts the early days of his blog,...
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145. Diego Fonstad, Educational Toys and Ed Tech Tinkerer
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Diego kicks off the conversation with a quick review of his career path, which included working at a business school in Barcelona, consulting in biotech and healthcare, and working as product manager and product running product groups. He then went back to business school. He talks about his job at the business school in Barcelona and what prompted him to take it. He explains that the opportunity arose through a professor he knew, and the timing of the 1992 Olympics made it hard to resist. He shares his insights on Catalonia's cultural differences and the importance of knowing...
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144. Kellie Doucette, Unexpected Journey: Pink Sand Beaches to New Jersey Politics
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Kellie Doucette describes her journey as zigs and zags, with three distinct chunks defined by her location: Northern Virginia, Bermuda, and New Jersey. She worked for a small health policy consulting firm called the Lewin Group in Northern Virginia, DC, where she met her future husband, John Doucette. A 13-Year Stint in Bermuda Kellie, an actuary, began her career in the Bermuda market after taking the actuarial exams. She and her husband moved to Bermuda in 1996, and they enjoyed the adventure of visiting family on the East Coast and raising their children there. The reinsurance...
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Lili Barouch, a cardiologist, went to medical school at Johns Hopkins. After moving to Baltimore, she became a cardiologist specializing in heart failure and transplant. She joined the faculty in 2003 and worked on basic science research, research lab, and inpatient and outpatient care for heart failure and transplant patients. Lili stayed in this role for about 10 years before transitioning to outpatient cardiology. She moved to Howard County, Maryland, where her children have grown up.
Founding the Sports Cardiology Program
Lili started becoming more athletic around 20 years ago. This led to her interest in sports cardiology, a field geared towards athletes. She founded the sports cardiology program at Johns Hopkins and a training program for future sports cardiologists. She talks about building a new program from scratch, how the field of sports cardiology has grown significantly.
Sports Cardiology Screening
Sports cardiology involves screening athletes, including younger athletes, high-level athletes, and masters athletes. Screening includes evaluating athletes for risk factors, symptomatic athletes, those with known cardiac diseases, and those with significant changes in the heart due to high-level exertion. Lili talks about findings through screenings in sports cardiology including congenital heart defects, a family history of cardiac death at a young age, or abnormal ECGs. She mentions that there is no single standard throughout the country for what type of screening is required for college athletics. The general Sports Med and team physician screen everyone to a certain extent. Sports cardiologists typically are involved in second-level screening, for example, high blood pressure is an area that needs to be addressed, especially in younger athletes. By understanding the specifics of each type of screening and addressing any underlying conditions, athletes can better prepare for their future athletic careers.
Stress Tests and ECG Abnormalities
The conversation turns to the importance of stress tests and ECG abnormalities in sports. Athletes often tend to be symptom minimizers, ignoring minor symptoms that don't seem to affect anything at the time. However, many athletes who develop cardiac arrests report having some symptoms before they report them later. Lili talks about finding the balance between not wanting to alarm patients and not wanting them to ignore symptoms.
Guidelines in Sports Cardiology
Sports Cardiology is its own field. New guidelines have come out this year about shared decision making, which helps athletes decide whether to continue playing or not. The previous guidelines were more paternalistic, with doctors telling athletes whether they can play or are not allowed to play. This led to many athletes hiding symptoms or being disqualified. Newer guidelines have looked at more recent research studies to determine if restricting individuals actually helps them. Many places found that it's okay for athletes to participate in ways that were not possible 10 or 15 years ago, but it also affects their psychological state severely if they get disqualified from their sport.
Changes to the Heart
Lili discusses the changes to the heart of elite athletes, including professional athletes, major sports leagues, and Olympic athletes. She explains that the higher level of an athlete, the more likely they are to have more people involved in their care. Studies on elite athletes, such as Tour de France cyclists and Olympic athletes, have shown that those who do high levels of endurance exercise, such as cycling, long-distance running, swimming, and cross-country skiing, tend to have an increase in the size of their heart chambers.
The Health Benefits of Exercise
The American Heart Association guidelines recommend a minimum of two 30 minute strength training workouts and at least three 30 to 45 minute aerobic exercise workouts of moderate intensity per week. The minimum recommended amount of exercise is two and a half hours per week, spread out throughout the week. For endurance athletes, this may be more than two hours a day. Lili talks about the benefits of exercise, highlighting that there are marginal additional gains up to three to four times the minimum recommended amount. The most significant gain is when one goes from zero hours per week to two or three hours per week of total exercise, up to about eight hours per week. This leads to greater fitness, benefits in blood pressure, cholesterol, reducing the risk of diabetes, and longevity. However, beyond eight or 10 hours per week, there are no additional health benefits.
Joining the Race
Lili started running in 2006, initially as a fitness exercise but eventually becoming an athlete due to her autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis. She joined the running club and was challenged by a friend to do a triathlon. She initially struggled with swimming, but eventually learned to swim and competed in several distances, including the full Ironman. Lili has run six marathons, mostly short and medium distance triathlons, and has achieved significant accomplishments such as qualifying for the Boston Marathon in 2018 and competing in the Boston Marathon in 2018. However, she also faced joint issues due to her rheumatoid arthritis, which led her to focus more on long distance triathlons.
The Growth of the Sports Cardiology Program
Lili founded a sports cardiology program based on her clinic, which primarily focuses on athlete patients. The program is also developing a National Registry of masters athletes to study the impact of high exercise levels on athletes' health. The program involves training fellows in cardiology who are interested in sports cardiology. A fellowship program was developed for one fellow, and the first formal graduates completed the program last year. Lili talks about an annual meeting called "The Care of the Athletic Heart" in Washington, DC, where they organize formal talks, educational symposia, and case presentations to help others get into the field. She also talks about resources and funding for the program.
Timestamps
02:19: Transition to Outpatient Cardiology and Personal Life
06:14: Evolution and Role in Sports Cardiology
07:05: Screening and Management of Athletes
15:25: Elite Athletes and Cardiac Health
27:15: Lily's Personal Athletic Journey
33:59: Founding the Sports Cardiology Program
37:26: Administrative and Research Aspects
40:56: Memorable Courses at Harvard
43:30: Resources and Future Plans
Links:
https://profiles.hopkinsmedicine.org/provider/lili-barouch/2705370
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heart-vascular-institute/cardiology/sports-cardiology
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heart-vascular-institute/education/sports-cardiology-fellowship
Featured Non-profit:
The featured non-profit of this episode of The 92 Report is recommended by Heather Taussig, class of ‘92, who reports:
“Hi, I'm Heather Taussig, class of 1992. The featured nonprofit of this episode of the 92 report is Fostering Healthy Futures. Fostering Healthy Futures is an evidence based mentoring program for children and teens in foster care. I am the program developer and principal investigator of Fostering Healthy Futures, which my team and I launched in 2002. You can learn more about our work at FosteringHealthyFuturesdotorg.“
To learn more about their work, visit: https://www.fosteringhealthyfutures.org/