In Good Company
Alumni talk about their careers, lives, and other adventures. In this installment, we meet a clinician and professor from America’s heartland who founded the world’s first (and so far, only) repository of normal breast tissue.
Who Anna Maria Storniolo, MD ’81
CURRENT POSITIONS Professor of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine; Co-Principal Investigator and founder, Susan G. Komen for the Cure® Tissue Bank at the IU Simon Cancer Center; Director, the Catherine Peachey Breast Cancer Prevention Program
HOW I GOT HERE By a roundabout path from academia through pharmaceutical drug development and back to my passions—clinical research and patient care. I finally learned that it is not only okay, but essential, to listen to your heart (and I don’t mean with a stethoscope).
WHAT KEEPS ME MOTIVATED Easy—my patients and their families. And the knowledge that we are this close to cracking the code for breast cancer.
WHAT KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT Not much; medical training cured me of insomnia forever. Seriously, I worry about how breast cancer deprives some of my patients and their families of so many of the little things that make life such a joy and a blessing. I want desperately to prevent that from happening.
MOST IMPORTANT THING I LEARNED IN MEDICAL SCHOOL Medicine is not rocket science. It’s diligence, passion, hard work, and a LOT of common sense.
WHAT I DO TO RELAX Sit in my sunroom with a good book or my needlepoint. Prepare a new recipe, which always includes plenty of wine for the cook!
WHAT’S ON MY NIGHTSTAND Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The Help by Kathryn Stockett. My journal.