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March 4, 2005/Adar I 23 5765, Volume 57, No. 27
Paging Dr. Shapiro
JENNIFER GOLDBERG
Special Sections Coordinator
Knowledge is power - so says Dr. Joan Shapiro.
As the vice president of research and development for the Barrow Neurological Institute in downtown Phoenix, Shapiro spends her days as an advocate for the laboratory and as a mentor for up-and-coming physicians. "I'm the bridge to encourage young men and women in medicine to think about an academic career, because we still have a lot of diseases out there for which we have no cures, and we need a lot of help," she says.
Shapiro's own career in the lab spans back several decades. She graduated from Cornell University Medical College. A geneticist by training, Shapiro worked at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York doing brain tumor research. In 1989, when her husband William was invited to come to the Barrow Neurological Institute as chairman of neurology, Shapiro also came on staff.
"At that time, Barrow had a number of neurobiologists, but had no person working the cell molecular area, so I was the first," she recalls. "They built a lab to accommodate me. Now we're up to 24 principal investigators, so we have expanded considerably."
Several years ago, Shapiro turned 65 and retired. "I stayed unemployed for about three hours," she laughs, "and they offered me this job as vice president to oversee research and to mentor young people, so that's what I've been doing."
Now, Shapiro spends long hours preparing the next generation of physicians for career excellence.
"I'm responsible for all graduate medical education - that means I have to make sure our young people are being educated as physicians."
She believes dedication is the foremost qualification for a would-be physician.
"They have to follow their heart. Just to get into medicine to have a good job and have a certain status in life is not enough. You really have to have an interest.
"It really boils down to the fact that you're going to spend incredibly long hours - people do not get sick on a 9-5 basis - and you need to be very dedicated."
Shapiro encourages the students she works with to consider working in the academic medical field, something that she herself felt strongly about in the early years of her career.
"After working on people in the emergency room for hours and have them crash, I knew we didn't have answers to all the problems," she recalls. "And so I wanted to go in the laboratory and see what I could do about finding out some of those answers. That's where the answers are.
"There is nothing we can give you as a pill or as a procedure or as a device that hasn't come from a laboratory. That's how it starts. So it's always important to encourage young men and women to think about medicine from that perspective. You really do need doctors in the laboratory, asking those important questions."
Shapiro mentions an upcoming event as an opportunity for people to ask their own questions - a St. Joseph's Hospital and Jewish Community Foundation-funded Jewish genetic testing session at the Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus on Sunday, April 3.
"I hate the expression Jewish genes, because I think it's a misnomer," Shapiro says. "Everyone has these same genes, and sometimes a mutation is found in higher proportion in populations, but they're certainly not unique to any certain culture.
"However, if you have certain backgrounds, as all of us come from certain areas, it is good to look at these particular genes for potential mutations."
Participants in the event will get blood drawn to test their genes for certain diseases that are disproportionately common in Ashkenazic populations, such as Tay-Sachs and Canavan diseases.
"If you carry the mutation by yourself, you're unaffected," Shapiro explains. "But if your spouse carries the same mutation, there's a one in four chance of having a child with that serious illness. And some of these illnesses are very serious.
"We will draw blood, and then we will actually test a whole series of genes that could carry mutations. If you have a specific Ashkenazic background, and your spouse could carry the same gene, it's just nice to know."
Shapiro is quick to stress that testing positive as a carrier of a disease is not the end of the world. "It's so important to know that if you have a mutation, basically, it doesn't mean anything. I think we need to be sure to make people understand that this doesn't carry a stigma, or it should not."
Shapiro advises that Jewish couples planning families get tested, because "I feel strongly about people knowing and having a right to make choices, and we should have facilities in our community that allow us to get this information.
I'm a real advocate of knowledge."
Details
- What: Jewish genetic testing
- When: 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday, April 3
- Where: Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale
- Cost: $36-$250
- Call: Kathy, 602-452-4627
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