McLean Celebrates Women’s History Month

March 18, 2019

1,631 of McLean’s 2,369 employees are women. McLean is proud of the contributions women make each day to ensure that the hospital delivers compassionate psychiatric care, innovative research, and unparalleled public and professional education throughout the United States and beyond.

These women are just a small sample of our female staff members and the work they do every day. Join us in celebrating their accomplishments.

Raquel Espinosa

Inspiring Hope Through Research
As a trained certified public accountant (CPA), Raquel Espinosa followed a unique path to McLean, where she oversees the hospital’s Research Administration. However, the detail-oriented work involved in becoming a CPA turns out to have been a perfect training ground for Espinosa, who uses her love of organizational and financial management to oversee the research infrastructural support for 150 principal investigators and a total research activity of approximately $50 million.

Shelly F. Greenfield, MD, MPH

Innovation and Compassion Are Hallmarks of a Career Founded on Ideals
Since her time as a medical student, Shelly F. Greenfield, MD, MPH, has understood that the integration of clinical care, research, and training was integral to delivering and improving patient care. This commitment has informed her work since then. “When I went into medicine, I believed strongly in the ideals of the profession—respect, dignity, and the importance of the patient-physician relationship in clinical care,” explained Greenfield, chief of the Division of Women’s Mental Health (DWMH) at McLean and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Fairlee C. Fabrett, PhD

How One Clinician Helps People Find Their Path
Teaching, mentoring, and helping others comes naturally to Fairlee C. Fabrett, PhD. As director of clinical training for McLean Hospital’s Adolescent Acute Residential Treatment (ART) Program, she supervises and supports post-doctoral fellows and clinical trainees, helping them gain the experience and skills they will need on the job. In some cases, she guides them toward areas of study and professional opportunities they may not have considered.

Lori Etringer, MBA

Promoting Her Hospital and Her Team
Growing up on a dairy farm in Iowa, Lori Etringer, MBA, McLean Hospital’s chief development officer, drew strength and inspiration from the women in her family. “My dad has six sisters, and four out of five in my family are female,” she said. “They are strong in both traditional and non-traditional ways.” From that close-knit female community, Etringer “learned a lot about hard work and perseverance.” But her father, who inspired her to seek a life beyond the farm, also had a powerful influence on her. “

Mary Lou England, RN

30 Years of Inspiration and Mentorship
Mary Lou England, RN, came to McLean Hospital at age 23, right out of nursing school, and she never left. Now, almost 31 years later, she serves as a clinical coordinator for the Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Inpatient Program. “My career has been shaped and influenced by the many women I have encountered over the years,” said England. “It’s been a long career, but I plan on sticking around!”

Women staff at McLean
McLean celebrates our female staff members and trainees

Dawn Morrissey

Inspired by the Tradition of Women Leaders at McLean
Every day on the job, Dawn Morrissey draws inspiration from McLean Hospital’s past. “When I walk through the hallway leading to the Administration Building on my way to meetings, I always look at the pictures on the wall of the female nurses, doctors, and scientists who have worked at McLean over the years,” she said. “These are women—like Emma Mooers, MD, the first female researcher at McLean, Golda Edinburg, MSW, the first female social worker at McLean, and Nancy Mello, PhD, the first woman at McLean to hold the rank of full professor at Harvard Medical School—who strived and achieved great things in their careers. Seeing those pictures reminds me that women are integral to the mission of the hospital.”

Kimberlyn Leary, PhD, MPA

Taking Stock and Focusing on Future Goals
Kimberlyn Leary, PhD, MPA, thinks Women’s History Month is important because “it reminds us of where we’ve been but helps us set our eyes on the horizon of where we want to go next.” As McLean Hospital’s executive director of policy outreach and of the Division of Women’s Mental Health, Leary believes that events such as Women’s History Month serve a necessary purpose for an organization.

Laura Germine, PhD

A Researcher’s Journey From Tinkerer to Innovator to Mentor
Laura Germine, PhD, calls herself a tinkerer. “I’ve always been messing around with technology—coding, building things,” she said. Fortunately for McLean—and the field of psychiatric research—Germine has moved far beyond tinkering. By combining her academic training in molecular biology, experimental psychopathology, and psychiatric genetics with her passion for technology, she created TestMyBrain.org. An innovative online platform for testing cognition and behavior, TestMyBrain is considered to be one of the first online neuropsychology laboratories.

Kara Backman

Focusing on Technology’s Role in Patient Care
Kara Backman, McLean’s chief information officer, said she has been fortunate as a woman pursuing a career in the traditionally male-dominated field of information technology (IT). “Personally, I have not faced many barriers in my career being a woman,” she said. “I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by supportive male and female managers and colleagues while working at Partners HealthCare.”

Kathryn Eve Lewandowski, PhD

Exploring the Intersection of Cognition and Severe Mental Illness
For Kathryn Eve Lewandowski, PhD, events like Women’s History Month can encourage organizations to increase their support for women professionals. “I think that it’s tremendously important that institutions like McLean take time to highlight the work that women are doing every day, and the many ways that women contribute to the community,” she said. “It can serve to provide female role models and show that women are valued.”

Susan Szulewski, MD

A Passion for Improving the Process of Mental Health Care
When Susan Szulewski, MD, was a medical student, she noticed how difficult it was for patients to navigate the cumbersome and confusing processes of the health care system—and she was inspired to do something about it. “I was on rotation at Mass General in their acute psychiatric service,” she recalled. “It was two in the morning, and I looked around at the patients in the emergency department. Some of them had been there for hours or days, and I started to wonder how they were going to get the treatment they needed.”

Maria Mastrangelo

Finding the Key to Professional Happiness
Looking back on her long career in health care finance, Maria Mastrangelo, McLean Hospital’s finance director, said that she has figured out the key to professional happiness. “Things are always changing in health care, and that’s the thing that makes it interesting,” she said. Mastrangelo came to McLean 19 years ago, after working at Blue Cross Blue Shield, the New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston, and several small health care-related companies. She started at McLean as budget manager, eventually moving up to her current role as finance director.

Sophia Maurasse, MD

A Life of Empathy and Experience
As a 10-year-old living in war-torn Liberia,Sophia Maurasse, MD, saw her whole world turn upside down in the span of one day. “I had the experience of spending 8 or 9 hours in my house in a crossfire, and our house was riddled with bullets,” she said. “Then, soldiers came and said, ‘you can get out now.’ They were watching out for us.” Upon leaving her home with her family, Maurasse found herself “walking the streets, being harassed and accused, surrounded by nothing but cadavers and checkpoints.” However, she also experienced humanity.

Florence Morin, RN

One Nurse’s Commitment to Learning and Teaching Every Day
“At our program, you learn from your coworkers and you learn from your patients every day,” said Florence Morin, RN, a clinical coordinator for McLean Hospital’s Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Inpatient Program, known as AB2. “Also, in our job, you’re always educating people—coworkers, patients and their families. It’s very rewarding.”

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