An autobiographical account of Professor Laura Fochtmann’s professional career was published in the inaugural edition of The Academic,
a publication of the Stony Brook School of Medicine. In it, Dr.
Fochtmann described the winding path that led from an early interest in
computer programming to her current status as a clinician educator
engaged in scholarly pursuits.
Dr. Fochtmann became involved in
biomedical research as an undergraduate combining pre-medical with
electrical engineering coursework at Washington University. Her
residency and chief residency experience at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a
research fellowship at the NIH positioned her for a traditional
“triple-threat” career as a clinician, researcher and educator, but her
overwhelming interest in clinical psychiatry ultimately drew her away
from a career in basic research.
Her scholarly interests were
not entirely suppressed. She got involved in the Suffolk County Mental
Health Project and the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Task
Force on ECT, and was hired part-time as the medical editor of the APA’s
practice guidelines. Her interest in computers resurfaced when she
became involved in the implementation of the electronic health record at
Stony Brook. She recently earned a Master’s degree in biomedical
informatics and is working to integrate informatics principles into the
APA guidelines.
Her career, she concluded, “exemplifies a number
of ways that individuals who are primarily clinician educators can take
a scholarly approach to clinical issues.”