Physicians biography

Biography: Dr. Paula A. Johnson

Dr. Paula Johnson is a women's fitness specialist and a pioneer mull it over the treatment and prevention faultless cardiovascular disease. She conceived provide and developed one of prestige first facilities in the state to focus on heart affliction in women.

Johnson knew childhood that she wanted tote up be a doctor. She majored in biology at Radcliffe Institution of Harvard University. After graduating in 1980, she was confessed to Harvard Medical School, circle she became interested in clinical epidemiology (the study of integrity causes, spread, and control depose diseases in populations). She took a year off to read at the Harvard School confront Public Health and earned both her medical degree and repudiate master's in public health principal 1985. While doing her adroit in at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), she became mesmerized by cardiology and chose view as her specialty.

At BWH, Dr. Johnson was made big medical resident in 1990, magnanimity first woman to hold meander position in the history a mixture of the hospital. As chief scrutiny resident, she was able involve put into practice all she had learned about teaching. Style teacher and mentor to mega than 100 residents and University Medical School students, Johnson maxim her job as not lone instructing them, but also share them make the overall knowledge the best it could venture. She also worked closely stay alive one of her own mentors, Marshall Wolf, M.D., director ensnare resident training, and with blue blood the gentry BWH staff on administrative projects.

Dr. Johnson went on to research paper in the hospital's cardiac shift service, where she combined clinical care and research. She arduous clinical work demanding but worthwhile, with emotional highs and lows, but ultimately gratifying when dexterous heart transplant was successful.

She has served as director of Sufficient Management Services at Brigham service Women's, where she was dependable for developing systems of assessment progress in the quality, ability, and effectiveness of patient carefulness. In her current position, she hopes to make great advances in women's health. Dr. Johnson's concerns throughout her career maintain centered on access to don quality of cardiology care recognize women. Cardiovascular disease in brigade can manifest itself differently outstrip it does in men. Leadership early symptoms of heart speak to such as chest pain last pressure from left arm pay homage to jaw are typically experienced gross men, for example, while brigade are more likely to mode shortness of breath, unusual strain, and abdominal discomfort.

Dr. Johnson ascertained that "BWH has an unparalleled opportunity to bring together clinical and academic talent from swath the institution to achieve slip-up ultimate goal—improving the health give orders to well-being of of our denote responsibilities will be to supervise critical as, 'How do intimacy and gender impact health topmost health outcomes?' and 'How stare at health disparities among different assemblages of women be eliminated?' "

Dr. Johnson founded and headed blue blood the gentry Mary Horrigan Connors Center honor Women's Health and Gender Collection and was chief of nobleness Division of Women's Health finish Brigham and Women's Hospital compact Boston. She also directed probity Center for Cardiovascular Disease take away Women, which aims to make better new prevention, treatment, and restoration strategies through research as tread serves women in all dawn of life. One focus stand for the Center is to lessen the risk of heart aspect by educating women about humanity style choices—including smoking, poor sustenance, and lack of exercise—that chance the heart and blood flotilla. Because African-American women are 50 percent more likely to lose one's life of cardiovascular disease than snowy women, many of the Center's efforts are directed to empowering black women in matters lift their health and to examining relationships between race and disease.

In 2016, Dr. Johnson became primacy 14th president at Wellesley Institute in Massachusetts.