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Milewicz Calls Career ‘Way Too Much Fun’
Committee on the Status of Women honors 'an asset to the scientific world'
as Distinguished Professional Woman
In introducing Dianna Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D., as the 2005 Distinguished Professional Woman of the Year at the annual banquet of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Committee on the Status of Women, Hariyadarshi Pannu, Ph.D., one of her nominators, provided a long list of titles, awards and honors that Milewicz has earned, including:
- Director of the Division of Medical Genetics,
- Director of the M.D./Ph.D. Program at the UT Medical School at Houston and the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston,
- Vice chair of the Department of Internal Medicine for four years,
- A Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist, and
- Holder of the President George H. W. Bush Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine.
Dianna Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D., spoke at the Committee on the
Status of Women’s banquet about the satisfaction
of patient
care and the thrill of research. Photo by Ester Fant
However, Pannu continued, while “these are all excellent reasons for nomination for the Distinguished Professional Woman award,” she said, “Dianna Milewicz is much more than even her excellent CV suggests.”
Milewicz is, Pannu said, “truly an inspiration to the young scientists (men and women) who wonder if it is possible to excel in an intense, competitive field and still meet their personal goals, not only towards their families, but also in terms of continuing to be warm, sincere human beings in an environment that is often not conducive to these qualities. She is truly an asset to the scientific world.
“If I were fanciful,” Pannu continued, “I would quote Tennyson’s poetry and say that Dianna Milewicz has taught me and many others:
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. To follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bounds of human thought.”
Milewicz, who has been at the UT Health Science Center since 1991, is an internist with a subspecialty in human genetics. Her research focuses on identifying genetic variations that predispose individuals to vascular diseases, such as aortic aneurysms and dissections.
“We are very proud of Dr. Dianna Milewicz and all she has done as an outstanding research scientist, mentor, leader and role model at our institution. We need to clone her,” said Health Science Center President James T. Willerson, M.D.
During Milewicz’s speech, she thanked people who have supported her in her career, including:
- Her husband, children and siblings, “the greatest family a person could ever have: loud, boisterous, warm, loving and supportive of each other.” She said that her father, a geologist, “taught me how to think like a scientist and to always wonder about the world around me.” Her mother “always pushed me and my sister to have a career so that we are not dependent – would never be dependent – on other people.”
- Colleagues: Dongchuan Guo, Hariya Pannu, Nilli Avidan, Van Tran Faculu, Senthil Duraisamy, Linda Dechtenberg, Judy Kao, Yao Zhong Liu, Madeline Ottoson, Lisa Vincent, Andrea Lafont, Norma Adams, Prateek Gupta, Erin Nies, Liu Xiu, Dawn Simmons, Ling Li and Doris Thornton – “You guys are the greatest.”
- UT Health Science Center President James T. Willerson, “who has been constantly supportive of my career. More than providing academic support in the way of protected research time and lab space, he always believed in my potential as a physician scientist and I thank him for his continual support.”
- Faculty and staff at the health science center – “I am surrounded by a wonderful group of faculty and staff that makes coming to work a pleasure each and every day. The work environment at this institution has always been collegial and supportive. I have always found a great set of talented individuals to collaborate with at the Medical School.”
Milewicz said that her career – a combination of patient care and research – is very gratifying. “I have the satisfaction of taking care of patients, along with the immediate rewards that such activities have. And I also have the thrill of doing research – the excitement of those ‘eureka!’ moments when you discover something no one else knows. In addition, you are making an impact on a disease beyond what you can do while caring for individual patients.”
She said she is having “way too much fun” in her career to “not have other women be successful in similar careers” and offered advice that she hopes will help other women succeed in academic medicine. Read her career advice in the January issue of The Leader, online.
Mentor Awards
At the banquet, at which CSW Chair Kathy Rodgers presided, the President’s Award for Mentoring Women, which includes a $2,000 cash award, was presented to three individuals:
- Faculty – Lu Ann Aday, Ph.D., the Lorne Bain Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Medicine, UT School of Public Health;
- Administrative and professional – Karen Storthz, Ph.D., assistant dean for research, UT Dental Branch at Houston; and
- Classified staff – Denise S. Carpenter, senior trainer, Human Resources.
By Pamela Lewis, Public Affairs