COM Outlook Spring 2020

8 | DR. KIRAN C. PATEL COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE SHIFTING GEARS With stories and features in everything from ABC News to The Washington Post , millions of dollars in grants, and hundreds of publications, it’s no surprise that Nancy Klimas, M.D., wears many hats throughout Nova Southeastern University (NSU), including clinician, educator, politician, and researcher. She also serves as director of three departments, including the NSU Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine (INIM), along with being the assistant dean of research at the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine (KPCOM). The Power of Rosie If you were to ask Klimas at a young age if she ever envisioned such a fulfilling life in medicine, the answer would have been an emphatic yes. This assertion can be traced to a supportive system that surrounded Klimas, who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the aftermath of World War II. “I knew I wanted to be a doctor as a small child,” Klimas recalled. “My mom encouraged this. It was her unfulfilled dream—a result of postwar Rosie the Riveter assuming the duties of a 1950s housewife. But it was my dream, too, and I used to craft doctor’s tools, including stethoscopes and hammers, out of tree branches and shale, which I used to examine all the dogs and cats.” Klimas, the fifth of six children, grew up in the typical American-dream lifestyle many Americans experienced after the war. Her father, Charles Vincent Klimas, was a loving and involved parent with an engineering background, while Klimas’s mother, Mary Grace, stayed home to raise the children in a setting that seemed like a scene from Leave It to Beaver . Reality Intervenes Like all shows, there are joyful moments shared, followed by family hardships. When Klimas was in the third grade, her father developed a brain tumor, causing the family to move from Pittsburgh to northern Virginia, where her mother was able to find work as a lab technician. The passing of Klimas’s father when she was in ninth BY JOEY GARCIA, B.S. (continued on page 10) shift gears \ ' shift ' girz \ phrase : to start thinking or acting in a new way, especially more quickly than before NANCY KLIMAS FULFILLS MEDICAL DESTINY