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Dear colleagues and friends,
Please join me in congratulating Jennifer Swails, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, on being selected as Vice Chair for Education for the Department of Medicine (DOM).
In this role, Dr. Swails will provide vision and leadership for the education mission of the department, including initiatives for students, residents, fellows, and faculty. In partnership with the chair, DOM education faculty and staff, Undergraduate (UME) and Graduate Medical Education (GME) leadership, and DOM administration, she will promote thriving for learners and educators, develop innovative teaching initiatives and advance educational scholarship within the department.
Before Dr. Swails joined the DOM in September 2024, she served as Internal Medicine Residency Program Director (2017–2024) and Associate Program Director (2012–2017) for McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston. In these roles, she integrated assessment, quality improvement, and research efforts for all undergraduate and graduate medical trainees across the department and created the ambulatory curriculum for the medical residents. She also led the department through a successful 10-year ACGME accreditation site visit and designed emergency clinical responses for Hurricane Harvey and COVID-19.
In addition to her work in graduate medical education, Dr. Swails was the Director of Interprofessional Collaboration at UTHealth (2018–2024), where she developed interprofessional simulations integrating over 3,000 student encounters annually, and received a Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation grant to support telehealth-based community engagement education in the Rio Grande Valley. In recognition of these contributions, Swails was named a Distinguished Teaching Professor and the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the Regent’s Outstanding Teaching Award and the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award.
After completing her undergraduate education at Davidson College, Dr. Swails received her medical degree at Weill Cornell Medical College and completed her internal medicine residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital.
As a national leader in medical education, Dr. Swails currently serves as Treasurer of the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine (APDIM), after joining the APDIM Council in 2022. She has contributed to initiatives with the Coalition for Physician Accountability UME-GME Review Committee, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Equity Matters, Association of American Medical College (AAMC) Core EPA Pilot, and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine. Her scholarly work focuses on holistic review, the UME-GME transition, and interprofessional education, with publications in JAMA, Academic Medicine, and the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
The Department of Medicine would like to extend our sincere appreciation to Karen Law, MD, for her truly outstanding and dedicated service as Interim Vice Chair for Education since 2024, in addition to her numerous leadership roles in education throughout her tenure at Emory. Under her leadership, the department's portfolio of training programs have maintained full accreditation and are consistently among the most highly regarded training programs in the country. Dr. Law will remain in the DOM Office of Education to support Dr. Swails and our education programs through the transition.
Please join us in welcoming Swails into her new role in leading the DOM Office of Education. We are excited to see her build on the established foundation of excellence in teaching and education in the DOM!
Sincerely,
Carlos del Rio, MD, FIDSA
Chair, Department of Medicine