Includes 1 oral history interview conducted on April 27, 2021 with Dr. Ann J. Brown by Joseph O'Connell as part of the Department of Medicine's Oral History Project.
In the interview, Brown discusses her leadership work within the Duke University School of Medicine, current conversations in academic medicine about work/life balance and appropriate work environments, and the impact of systemic bias on research into women's health. The themes of this interview include endocrinology, faculty affairs and development, and gender in medicine.
Dr. Ann Julia Brown, MD, MHS, was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Brown attended Mount Holyoke College as an undergraduate and Stanford University for medical school (1988). She completed her Internship in Obstetrics and Gynecology (1988-1989) and her residency in Internal Medicine (1989-1991) at Yale-New Haven Hospital before coming to Duke to complete her Endocrinology Fellowship (1991-1993). Following the completion of her fellowship, Brown joined the Duke faculty and focused her work on women's health and leadership. At Duke, Brown has held appointments in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. From 2004 to 2010, Brown was the Associate Dean for Women in Medicine and Science, and from 2006 to 2010, she was the Associate Vice Dean of Faculty Development. In 2011, Brown was appointed the Vice Dean for Faculty. In this role, Brown leads the Office for Faculty, which provides extensive programming targeted to support faculty success.
According to Brown, the combination of attending a women's college and an early interest in OB/GYN medicine shaped her work in endocrinology and women's health, where she focused on women's health as more than only reproductive health. In looking to answer some of the questions about women's health, Brown created a women's health seminar series early in her tenure at Duke. In addition to wanting to understand the lives and challenges of her patients, she wanted to assist her female colleagues in navigating promotion and tenure, creating work/life balance, and nurturing healthy work environments. She found that the creation of a professional development seminar series had resonance beyond the community of women she initially set out to serve. Brown noted that work/life balance was also important to her male colleagues, who often described their desire to participate more fully in the lives of their families.
Brown's passion for helping faculty, especially women and underrepresented groups, experience a "balanced" work life and transparent work expectations is her primary passion and focus of her work as Vice Dean of Faculty. She is galvanized by the new generation of students who "expect equity, and expect their concerns to be taken seriously." She sees structural changes as key to navigating everything from creating policies on harassment to setting up faculty awards committees. She is driven to empower people to do their best.
Brown accomplishments at Duke include but are not limited to being selected serve on the University-wide Duke Women's Initiative (2002); receiving the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion award from the Duke Office for Institutional Equity (2006); completing the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Fellowship for women with outstanding leadership potential (2009); and the Carole J. Bland Phronesis Award, which recognizes dedicated and selfless promotion for faculty vitality (2019).
