Welcome to part 2 of my 25 part series “Better Know a Speaker.” Today’s speaker is Dr. Jen, the fighting doctor!

Since Dr. Jen was nice enough to write up a long form bio for me, I’ll let her tell about herself in her own words…

“A kind, generous, loving, sesquipedalian, impactful, purple, thoughtful, creative pediatrician, Dr. Jen toils her days away playing with adorable babies, joking with wise children, battling anti-vaxxer nonsense and teaching parents that homeopathy’s ‘remedies’ simply don’t hold water…or rather, they do…lots of water…probably entirely water. Or sugar. But not medicine. But kids like sugar. They’re pretty neutral on water. Which is appropriate.

Her route to medicine was not a straight line. She grew up thinking that she would be a doctor (influenced, in no small part, by her experiences as a cancer survivor at the age of 3 in 1972—thank you, Children’s Memorial Hospital!). That plan carried her through the vast majority of her life until college physics…it just wasn’t engaging her brain. She got a physics tutor, but his answering machine message said something about being unable to answer the phone because he was in a hexadecahedral dimension or something, which she might find funny now, but then just made her think he was weird and likely creepy. The tutoring with this bushy-bearded gent lasted all of one useless session. Jennifer dropped the class. Therefore, she wouldn’t fill pre-med reqs, so she knew she couldn’t apply to med school, hence started exploring other areas. Thus. Wherefore. Thereunto. Hither, thither and yon. QED. Et cetera, et cetera. And all that.

Becoming a psych major, she took amazing classes like “The Psychology of Mind Control” with Phil Zimbardo (Stanford Prison Experiment guy), “Decision Making and Judgment” with Amos Tversky (would have shared in a Nobel if he hadn’t died too young), and Patricia Ryan’s Improvisational Acting classes.

After graduation, Jennifer tried to stay in Northern California, grabbing a sales job at Macy’s (lasted a week…had no idea what blackwatch plaid was…she knows now), looking at various insanely priced rentals, then heading back to Sweet Home Chicago to family and friends…she’s quite sentimental, you know. She soon landed a job as a mutual-funds analyst. Being part of the financial world by day, taking classes at Chicago’s Player’s Workshop and Second City by night, she was living it up! Time passes…things change…gets to that important question: “What am I doing with my life? What do I want to do with my life? Why aren’t those things the same?” A little bit of this, a little bit of that, she took her premeds, which included a great intro physics class by excellent science teacher and communicator Art Schmidt at Northwestern (this time Jen topped the class!!), went to med school in frigid (and she doesn’t use that term lightly) Minnesota, then returned to complete the circle by coming back to Chicago.

Jennifer (Dr. Jen, Niffer, Fennifer, Jen…whatever…just not Jenny) plans to talk about medical communication and how she almost fell into the trap of throwing out a pile of data at every parent question or concern when that’s not always what they want or will absorb. If you have the evidence behind you, and are able to pull it out as needed, is it really so wrong to start with an anecdote? And is the occasional ad hominem against the anti-vaxxers that great a sin against skepticism? Well, maybe…it might slip out.

In her spare time, Jennifer is one of the organizers for the Chicago Skeptics Meetup group, has helped bring George Hrab to Chicago, and is working diligently at setting up a general Chicago Skeptics website and Facebook page. Ok…the diligently thing is an outright lie. But it’ll happen. Probably.”

Thank you, Dr. Jen! See you back here next time for part 3 of Better Know a Speaker!

–Supreme Speaker Conjurer Don

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