Mary Donovan, Assistant Dean Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC.

Mary Donovan is the Assistant Dean for Standardized Patients (SPs) & Experiential Learning at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC. She has served at Georgetown as administrative director and educator for the Integrated Learning and Simulation Center since 2007, providing medical students with clinical learning and assessment opportunities through SP education and simulation. These methodologies use professionally trained actors, retired teachers and others to portray specific patients and families in a broad spectrum of healthcare experiences for learners – a safe space to develop clinical and communication skills and receive feedback from the patient perspective. Prior to Georgetown, she held a faculty position as senior SP trainer at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and as academic-affairs staff at Johns Hopkins Medical School. Prior to her work in med-ed experiential learning, she managed a forum of women in international trade and diplomacy, taught as adjunct faculty on Georgetown’s main campus in the mid-90s, served as marketing manager for a B2B organization, and as chapter liaison for a national trade association. In the early days of online journal search-and-retrieval and library automation, she worked as a researcher at the National Library of Medicine, Library of Congress and other libraries. While in college and beyond, she worked for the UVa Hospital Education system, teaching children with disabilities from birth to age 21. Mary presented (virtually) at the Ottawa Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as a finalist for the IMU-RHIME Award for Innovation in March of 2020, and won an innovation award for her presentation at the international Association for Standardized Patient Educators in 2011. From 2016-18 she served as Chair for the Mid-Atlantic Consortium of med-school clinical-skills programs. In 2016, GUMC honored her as a “bridge-builder” in the Ongoing Engagement and Consultation initiative. She recently joined the editorial board for the Journal of Health Design, published in Melbourne, Australia. She joined the Screen Actors Guild in 1999; speaking roles to-date have landed on the cutting-room floor, but she (or her old Honda Civic) can be seen as background in various TV and film productions. Mary’s artwork has sold in art fairs and hospital exhibitions, and through personal commissions. Her days as a publically performing singer and guitarist are largely in the past, but she dreams of resurrecting half-written original songs someday. Other work that will never retire – writing short stories, children’s books, a memoir, a novel and personal essays. Meanwhile, she launched a blog/website in early 2021: marymuffindonovan.com She received her BA in English from the University of Virginia, MA in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University and MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Twitter: @marydonobird Instagram: @maryfdonz Facebook: /mary.donovan.75457 Website: marymuffindonovan.com