Dr. Jennifer Hartmark-Hill Honored for Excellence in Education
Jennifer Hartmark-Hill, MD, University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix associate professor of bioethics and medical humanism and family, community and preventive medicine, has received the Education Excellence Award from the Maricopa County Medical Society. This award is presented to a physician who exemplifies excellence in medical education.
Jennifer Hartmark-Hill, MD
“I am incredibly grateful to the Maricopa County Medical Society for this recognition,” said Dr. Hartmark-Hill. “It has been a pleasure to serve as a curricular leader and medical student mentor at the College of Medicine – Phoenix over the past decade, and to provide faculty development at regional and national levels. I applaud the Medical Society for their ongoing promotion of medical education and learning.”
A 2005 graduate of the College of Medicine – Tucson, Dr. Hartmark-Hill is a family medicine physician, medical educator and patient advocate. Dr. Hartmark-Hill is director of the Narrative Medicine and Health Care Humanities program, which brings together health humanities programs with an emphasis in narrative perspectives.
“In the field of narrative medicine, we talk about the hero’s journey. The hero leaves the familiar to venture into uncertainty and faces seemingly insurmountable challenges. The hero perseveres, gaining new insights and strength, and eventually returns to the place where they started, forever changed,” said Dr. Hartmark-Hill in explaining how the hero’s journey applies to medical students on the path to become physicians. “To be a hero is to bravely take that journey into the unknown to find and develop your strengths. A hero acts out of love for humanity, is willing to bear witness to suffering, and to mobilize compassion through acts of service, human kindness and love.”
Dr. Hartmark-Hill directs several curricular programs, including the Patient-Centered Care Curriculum, and provides volunteer patient care for people experiencing homelessness with Street Medicine Phoenix. Compassion and humanism are central to her teaching philosophy.
“Humanism is love of humanity – love in action and empathy in action, which is compassion. A tremendous amount of scientific research shows that compassion, when applied to the care of patients, results in better outcomes overall,” said Dr. Hartmark-Hill. “Given all that we have gone through together in the recent era, compassion has taken on a new meaning for me. We have been suffering together. We feel empathy with others suffering and are moved to action.”
Dr. Hartmark-Hill also is program director of Faculty Instructional Development Programs for the College of Medicine – Phoenix, director of the UArizona Faculty Development Fellowship, which trains faculty leaders to become exemplary clinical teachers, and past medical director of the Show Clinic. She is the president-elect of the Arizona Medical Association and an alternate delegate to the American Medical Association.