By Katarina Lewczyk
This month’s Chair’s Spotlight, part of our leadership series, features Kimberly Eisenstock, MD, vice chair for clinical affairs in the Department of Medicine, associate chief medical officer for UMass Memorial Medical Center, and assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine.
Dr. Eisenstock discovered her passion for medicine with the encouragement of a college microbiology professor. She was enrolled at a small state college without a pre-med program. Her professor offered key advice during this class: “ I think you are making a mistake. I think you were meant to be a physician. You should consider changing your major to biology and pursuing the honors research track,” recalled Dr. Eisenstock. “He was right, and from there, I changed majors and found a couple of fantastic research mentors. That’s how I ended up going to medical school.”
Dr. Eisenstock attended medical school and completed her Internal Medicine residency at UMass Chan. During residency, she admired hospitalists such as Drs. Christine Donahue, Majid Yazdani, and Eric Alper, who inspired her to join the Division of Hospital Medicine as a hospitalist. During her first year in Hospital Medicine, the division chief requested that she transition to the family medicine service to fill an emergent opening. It was there where Dr. Eisenstock said her leadership initiatives began.
During her time in family medicine, Dr. Eisenstock was asked by colleagues to step into a director role following a sudden shift in the department. From there, her leadership skills grew, eventually leading her to join the Memorial Stroke Committee at UMass Memorial Medical Center. There, she collaborated with colleagues to establish the Memorial Code Stroke Pathway. “I like impacting patient quality in a much broader sense. I still love working at the bedside, but there are things that you cannot fix for the patient in that moment. As a leader, you can work for systemic changes that have a lasting, broad effect on patient care. It’s these patient safety and quality impacts that drew me in and sustained me as a leader,” said Dr. Eisenstock.
As vice chair for clinical affairs in the Department of Medicine, Dr. Eisenstock advocates for the resources and workflows needed to create acute optimal clinical care operations within the medical center. She also partners with Dr. Deborah Blazey-Martin in advocating for ambulatory clinical practices' growth needs while addressing the health system’s expansion strategy. In this role, she has focused on system growth and the service needs of community hospitals and clinics to ensure services are available close to home for patients and are maintained at the Medical Center for higher acuity patients. “Recently, we have recruited a new endocrinologist to Harrington to support their large diabetic population and a pulmonologist who will be working as the director of the ICU to increase the acuity of patients that can be supported in this community ICU,” said Dr. Eisenstock.
According to Dr. Eisenstock, developing multidisciplinary clinics in the community and increasing services at the community hospitals provide significant support for patients and their families. “If you live west of Harrington and you are sick, having your family visit is so important. It’s important to a patient's healing journey to be able to have their family involved in their care,” said Dr. Eisenstock.
We thank Dr. Eisenstock for her continuous dedication to her patients and the department, and her advocacy towards clinical care!