Integrating Faith with
Healthcare and Medicine
General Motors Classroom
This panel will examine the issues surrounding the notion that sound, science-based medicine can be practiced by highly credentialed and deeply faithful Christians; and further, will offer examples from prominent practitioners showing how they integrate their faith constructively into their medical activity. Beyond this, we will also examine ways in which faith might strengthen and deepen important relational and other non-technical aspects of medical practice that are critical to a whole person approach to medicine.
Moderator
Tessa Winter D’09
Eleazar Wheelock Society Administrator
Tessa Winter graduated from Dartmouth College in 2009 Summa Cum Laude, as a Rufus Choate Scholar and with Distinction and High Honors in Sociology. She will attend Dartmouth Medical School in the fall.
Currently, Miss Winter is working as the administrator of the Eleazar Wheelock Society and as the Wheelock Conference Coordinator. She also works as a research assistant for a pediatric psychiatrist in Maine. While at Dartmouth, Miss Winter helped to found the Dartmouth Apologia and served as its production manager and special features editor.
Panelists
Kathleen Kovner Kline, MD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colorado
Kathleen Kovner Kline, M.D. is the Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and an adjunct faculty member at Dartmouth Medical School. She is the principal investigator for the Commission on Children at Risk’s Report to the Nation, Hardwired to Connect: the New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities.
Dr. Kline received her M.D. from Yale Medical School, completed her psychiatric training at the Institute of Living/University of Connecticut Psychiatry Program and her Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at Dartmouth Medical School. Dr. Kline also holds a Masters of Divinity from Yale Divinity School.
At the University of Colorado and at Dartmouth, she has taught child and adolescent development and psychopathology to medical students, pediatricians, family practitioners, psychiatrists, child and adolescent psychiatry fellows, and trainees in psychology and social work. Her clinical practice has included treating child and adult patients in acute hospital and outpatient settings, directing diagnostic and psychopharmacology clinics, and consultation to treatment centers for delinquent and severely emotionally impaired youth. Dr. Kline has a history of involvement with grass roots, community service, and religious institutions, and a particular interest in the role of character-shaping institutions in the prevention of psychosocial maladjustment.
Ralph W. Aye, MD D’72
Former Chief of Surgery, Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA
Ralph W. Aye, M.D. is an attending thoracic and esophageal surgeon and thoracic surgery fellowship director at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. There he has served, among many other positions, as Chief of Surgery from 2002 to 2005, as a clinical assistant professor in the University of Washington, Department of Surgery from 1987 to 2009, and as the president of the Seattle Surgical Society from 2007 to 2008. Dr. Aye publishes regularly in many medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Aye graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1972 with a modified biology major and went on to receive his M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1977. Dr. Aye did his internship and began his general surgery residency at New York University’s Bellevue Medical Center before moving to the Swedish Medical Center in 1979 where he became Chief Resident. He also completed fellowships in thoracic and esophageal surgery at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, England and as the Howard S. Wright Fellow to Lucius D. Hill, M.D. in Seattle.
Dr. Aye currently attends Pine Lake Covenant Church in Sammamish, Washington where he regularly leads worship, leads bible studies and has served as the prayer coordinator. He has participated with a healing prayer ministry over the past three years. Dr. Aye has also been involved in medical missions, traveling with his wife to Kenya several times and running a primary care clinic out of his suitcase.
Linda F. Piotrowski
Pastoral Care Coordinator, Palliative Care Service, DHMC
Linda F. Piotrowski is the Pastoral Care Coordinator for the Palliative Care Service at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, a position she has held since 2006. Prior to coming to DHMC, she served as a chaplain at the Central Vermont Medical Center, and other several other long-term, acute care and hospice settings. She has also served as the regional director of spiritual care for the Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare System in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There she supervised 27 chaplains and 8 parish nurses working in five acute care hospitals and four nursing homes.
Mrs. Piotrowski holds a master’s degree in theology from St. Francis Seminary, School of Pastoral Ministry in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She also writes frequently for chaplaincy publications, presents nationally and has held numerous positions in the National Association of Catholic Chaplains. Linda and her husband of 41 years, Richard, reside in Lebanon, New Hampshire. They are the proud grandparents of two lovely granddaughters.
Nicholas H. Laffely, MD
Interventional Cardiologist, DHMC
Nicholas H. Laffely, MD is an interventional cardiologist at DHMC. Dr. Laffely specializes in interventional cardiology and percutaneous coronary intervention. He was a resident at Washington University in St. Louis and a fellow at DHMC. Dr. Laffely received his MD from the Medical College of Wisconsin.
