The Pisacano Leadership Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM), recently selected Brianne Huffstetler Rowan, 4th year medical student at the UW School of Medicine, as one of their 2016 Pisacano Scholars. These 5 scholars and medical students follow in the footsteps of 103 scholar alumni who are practicing physicians and 20 current scholars who are enrolled in medical schools or family medicine residency programs across the country. The Pisacano Leadership Foundation was created in 1990 by the ABFM in tribute to its founder and first executive director, Nicholas J. Pisacano, MD (1924–1990). Each Pisacano Scholar has demonstrated the highest level of leadership, academic achievement, communication skills, community service, and character and integrity.
Brianne Huffstetler Rowan graduated from Juniata College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Global Health and French. She also recently completed her Master of Public Health (MPH) at UW’s School of Public Health as part of an NIH-sponsored Pre-Doctoral Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Fellowship.
At UW, Brianne was named to both the Alpha Omega Alpha and Gold Humanism Honor Societies during her junior year and currently serves as secretary and Secretary General (president) for these UW chapters, respectively. She has been awarded the University of Washington’s School of Medicine Distinction in Service Award yearly for 4 years. Brianne has served with several free clinics in Seattle, Habitat for Humanity and Girls on the Run. She volunteers with the ROOTS young adult homeless shelter and has served for 2 years as the volunteer coordinator for UW student teams serving weekly breakfasts at the shelter. Brianne has also been an integral part of UW’s Family Medicine Interest Group, and has served for 3 years as the co-chair of Tar Wars, an American Academy of Family Physicians tobacco and smoking prevention program for 4th and 5th grade students. The program now reaches over 300 students yearly and was ranked 2nd place nationally in 2014 and 3rd place nationally in 2016.
As part of her MPH program, Brianne spent time in Vietnam promoting appropriate infant and young child feeding practices in rural areas. She spent six summers in a rural village in Northern Thailand volunteering to help bring youth together for cross-cultural community building and English language instruction. Her MPH thesis research focused on workforce needs in antenatal care clinics in Côte d’Ivoire.
Brianne is excited for the next stage of her journey in family medicine and for the opportunities to build compassionate, longitudinal relationships with patients and families. She hopes to dedicate her life to creating, improving, and providing comprehensive primary care programs with strong maternal-child health services in rural areas throughout the world.