Maureen Chung, M.D., Ph.D. '01,
is quintessentially "Brown"-a
multi-faceted faculty member
whose professional life merges
very different worlds, from the
operating room to the basic laboratory
bench, from the clinic to
the classroom.
After completing her medical
training in Canada, she came to
Brown as a surgical oncology fellow,
joined the faculty, and then
earned her Ph.D. in pathobiology
at Brown. When she's not performing
surgery, she teaches
medical students, conducts
oncology research, and directs
undergraduate, graduate, and
medical student summer interns
in basic and clinical science.
She's currently doing pre-clinical
studies on potential vaccines for
breast and pancreatic cancer.
"It's a good balance," she says. "In surgery, you get immediate gratification because you can often fix the problem. That's the opposite of research, which takes a lot of patience and a long time to get results. And then there are the students-they ask the best questions and take so much initiative. They learn to think differently, and they perpetuate that attitude when they go on to other institutions and change how things are done."