By Patrick Wascovich

Dr. Deborah Saddington Freeland

As a young child Debbie Saddington lived for a few years in Japan, whose culture treasures the wisdom and experience of the elderly. Perhaps this time left a lasting impression on the doctor, who has an abiding call to service in geriatric medicine.

“Medical School has allowed my passion to flourish,” said Dr. Deborah Saddington Freeland, who married a UT Southwestern Medical School alumnus in 2016. “Working on the inpatient geriatric service during my Internal Medicine rotations has been an enlightening experience that has emphasized the benefits of viewing each patient holistically and working as a team member. The patient – along with the family, pharmacist, therapists, chaplain, social worker, nurses, and physicians – are all critical to providing quality care, particularly for older adults where functionality and social needs are often barriers to treatment.”

Dr. Freeland’s long history of interest in geriatrics helped in her being named recipient of the 2017 Lorraine Sulkin-Schein Medical Student Award in Geriatric Medicine. The honor recognizes a Medical Student who has demonstrated compassion, keen interest, and commitment to the care of older adults. The award is named in honor of Mrs. Schein, a longtime supporter of
UT Southwestern Medical Center who bequeathed funds to promote geriatrics as a career path for Medical Students. She died in 2007 at the age of 89.

“I am absolutely overjoyed and honored to receive this award,” said Dr. Freeland, whose internal medicine residency will be at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. “The Geriatrics Department has been so wonderfully supportive over the past four years, and I am thankful for all of their guidance and mentorship.”

The youngest of five children, Dr. Freeland moved with her family several times. Her father’s career with Johnson & Johnson dictated the relocations, but the Saddington family finally settled in Austin for Dr. Freeland’s high school years. She participated in color guard, ran track, and found her calling. “Medicine first captured my imagination while studying the kidney in my high school Anatomy and Physiology class,” she said.

At Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, she majored in biology and was inducted into the Biology Honor Society (Beta Beta Beta) and the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. Although volunteering and church activities kept her busy, she needed more.

“In order to gain more experience in health care, I became a Certified Nurse Assistant and secured a part-time job at a nursing home, thinking that I would work at a hospital after gaining some experience,” Dr. Freeland said. “What I found at the nursing home was an incredible patient population that was medically complex, functionally diverse, potentially vulnerable, and full of engaging stories, and I worked there throughout college.”

At UT Southwestern Medical School, her faculty mentors included Drs. Craig Rubin, Professor of Internal Medicine; Vivyenne Roche, Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Geriatrics Fellowship Program; and Shawna Nesbitt, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Associate Dean for Minority Student Affairs. Her activities and interests included No One Dies Alone, the Geriatric Interest Group, the Palliative Care Interest Group, the Gold Humanism Honor Society, and the MS4 Peer Mentor initiative.

“Debbie has been an exceptional advocate for older patients,” Dr. Roche said. “She has a passion for taking care of them and is thoughtful about optimizing their function and improving their quality of life. We look forward to her continued success.”

The Medical Student Training in Aging Research Program led her to work with geriatric psychiatrist Dr. Paul Rosenberg at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine on a clinical research project involving patients with severe dementia. Dr. Freeland subsequently attended the American Geriatrics Society 2015 Annual Meeting, where she presented at the Presidential Poster Session. The collaborative paper has just been accepted in the journal International Psychogeriatrics.

And somehow she set aside time for a private life. Last September she married Dr. Zachary Freeland, who is in the second year of his internal medicine residency at Baylor University Medical Center. They met in college before attending UT Southwestern together and recently took a two-week honeymoon to Japan

Dr. Rubin holds The Margaret and Trammell Crow Distinguished Chair in Alzheimer’s and Geriatric Research; the Seymour Eisenberg Distinguished Professorship in Geriatric Medicine; the Sinor/Pritchard (Katy Sinor and Kay Pritchard) Professorship in Medical Education Honoring Donald W. Seldin, M.D.; and the Walsdorf Professorship in Geriatrics Research.