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LDI Fellows Bowles, Halpern, and South Named to National Academy of Medicine

Cited for Contributions in Science, Medicine, and Health

October 22, 2024

By:

Hoag Levins

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Named to the National Academy of Medicine are LDI Senior Fellows Kathryn Bowles of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and Scott Halpern and Eugenia South of the Perelman School of Medicine.

LDI Senior Fellows Kathryn Bowles, Scott Halpern, and Eugenia South were named new members of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) at the organization’s Oct. 20 annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Bowles, PhD, RN, is Professor of Biobehavioral Health Science at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing; Halpern, MD, PhD, is a Professor of both Medicine, Epidemiology, and Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine; and South, MD, MSHP, is Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Perelman School.

The three were among 100 new members named to what is one of the highest honors in the field of health and medicine. They join thirty other LDI Senior Fellows who are members of the prestigious National Academy. NAM President Victor J. Dzau characterized the new crop of members as “the most exceptional researchers and leaders in health and medicine, who have made significant breakthroughs, led the response to major public health challenges, and advanced health equity.”

Bowles is van Amerigen Chair in Nursing Excellence at the School of Nursing, and Vice President and Director of the Center for Home Care Policy and Research at VNS Health in Philadelphia. Her work has accelerated the implementation of a learning health system via rigorous evidence in transitional care and advances in health information technologies. Bowles and her team have developed and commercialized a decision support tool for discharge planning to identify patients in need of post-acute care services. Her work with sepsis survivors resulted in a new ICD-10 code for sepsis aftercare.

Halpern is Director of the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research Center of the Perelman School. His have been seminal contributions to improving care near the end of life by combining conceptual and empirical work. Through trenchant ethical analyses and leadership of the field’s largest clinical trials, he has challenged old paradigms of serious illness decision-making and demonstrated how low-cost, scalable interventions can improve care quality and outcomes.

South is Associate Vice President of Health Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and Faculty Director of the Center for Health Justice at the University of Pennsylvania. Being among the country’s foremost leaders in developing and testing interventions to dismantle structural racism and prevent firearm injury in Black neighborhoods, she has made substantive, field-changing scientific and real-world contributions to advancing health via the lens of racial, environmental, and economic justice.