By Patrick Wascovich

Drs. Ryan McClaine and Herbert Rosenbaum both want to effectively assist the medically underserved, but they are embarking on entirely different residency locales to make this goal a reality. Dr. Rosenbaum will spend the next few years at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix, while Dr. McClaine will train in family medicine at Providence Medical Center in Anchorage, Alaska.

Their passion for service has made Drs. McClaine and Rosenbaum co-recipients of the 2017 William F. Ross, M.D., Scholarship Award in Family Medicine. Caring for others, especially those in dire need, has become a lifelong ambition for each.

The Ross Award, named after the Chair of Family and Community Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center from 1984 to 1993, includes a $1,000 scholarship from the Dallas chapter of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians Foundation.

“I’m so pleased and humbled to receive an award honoring the life and work of Dr. Ross,” Dr. McClaine said. “He lived a life I can aspire to, working for some time in a rural community before becoming an advocate for primary care education at UT Southwestern. I hope to make a lot of people proud in applying my medical and public health degrees in a small community and hope to guide others to learn what a fulfilling life can be made in providing truly complete care to people through the peaks and valleys of life in a small town.”

Dr. Rosenbaum said, “I am humbled to be recognized among a group of people who inspire me daily. The Family Medicine community at UT Southwestern is small but saturated with amazing physicians, providers, and students.”

Dr. Ryan McClaine

Dr. Ryan McClaine

The physical roadmap of Dr. Ryan McClain’s life includes stops in Florida, Michigan, Texas, England, Scotland, Denmark, and Africa. His personal roadmap is equally diverse and, at times, challenging.

His mother divorced when he enrolled in elementary school. She made ends meet as best she could working as a veterinarian tech, but, with two small children to raise and health issues to address, there were times when they had to rely on the help of others to survive – including a stretch of several months living aboard a docked sailboat after losing the lease on their Florida apartment. His mother’s rare genetic kidney disorder also frequently led to stone formation and subsequent infections. 

“The medical community played an important role in my life throughout this time,” Dr. McClaine recalled. “Finishing homework assignments and overnighting at the hospital was a normal part of my routine. This helped me to learn firsthand what it means to be financially challenged and to be neglected by the medical insurance industry, how it affects the complete person, and how it affects their families.”

The young family eventually relocated to a small rural farm in Michigan when Dr. McClaine’s mother remarried. “This is where I spent my formative years – from 8 to 17 – fishing and kayaking on the rivers, horseback riding, and snowmobiling between helping my stepfather with various home projects. He was a carpenter/landscaper, and I learned to love fixing things and being outdoors.”

By the time he went to Texas A&M University, Dr. McClaine planned to become a large animal veterinarian. But his adventurous nature also led to two years of Peace Corps service in the small mountainous African kingdom of Lesotho. He taught math and science, worked with various community efforts, and furthered his passion for tinkering and fixing while living with a local mechanic.

Almost everyone but Dr. McClaine knew what he would become when he arrived at UT Southwestern Medical School. “When I jumped ship from veterinary medicine, everyone told me I would become a family doctor,” he said. “I didn’t really know what that meant. I thought all doctors worked with families. Growing up, I met so many doctors that it never occurred to me that they were all doing such different things, that the specialization of medicine had created so many different paths of professional healing. By the time I arrived at UT Southwestern, it was too late; I had already inadvertently fostered a passion for generalism that would stick.”

Dr. Jennifer Buchanan Walsh, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and of Internal Medicine who leads the Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Residency Program, said, “Ryan possesses an uncommon maturity for a medical student that seems to have its roots in a myriad of rich and meaningful life experiences. His strong work ethic, dedication to his patients, and drive to learn were evident; yet, he was ever genuine and humble, motivated by a desire to provide the best possible care to his current and future patients, rather than an attempt to impress those around him. It is always a privilege to work with students like Ryan; he has the skills and qualities to be a truly outstanding family medicine physician.”

Dr. McClaine loved each of his clinical rotations, but the die was cast. “The work I did felt meaningful – all of it,” he said. “But by the time Year 3 rolled around, there was no doubt – I was going to be a rural family physician.”

He will receive training for that career in the country’s most northern state.

“They are a traditionally structured larger program based in Anchorage, which offers training with volume and a range of pathology, but they send their 12 residents to rural sites throughout the three-year residency to give experiences in true rural and resource-limited settings,” Dr. McClaine said. “I’m nervous for the challenge of stepping up to so many different forms of medicine that take years to master, but I have the confidence to know that I’ll be providing a level of care that many individuals might otherwise never have access to. This next step truly feels like the culmination of a lifetime of experiences.”

Dr. Herbert Rosenbaum

Dr. Herbert Rosenbaum

Empathy, situational consideration, and a willing heart all play a part in most scenarios Dr. Herbert Rosenbaum finds himself facing. They are characteristics passed on from his mother, a Registered Nurse, and father, a consumer bankruptcy attorney.

“My mother was my first, and most influential, exposure to medicine in her enthralling patient stories, experiences in home health, and empathetic attention to patient-centered, whole-person care,” he said. “My father provided me with a lawyer’s critical eye and a heart for the underserved and social justice in his decades of inspiring and empowering work with the financially at-risk and abused.”

Born and raised in San Antonio, Dr. Rosenbaum studied classical and contemporary piano for more than a decade, regularly volunteered at a local animal shelter, and rose to the rank of Eagle in the Boy Scouts of America. He has immense pride in his hometown as a fan of the Spurs of the National Basketball Association.

Dr. Rosenbaum graduated summa cum laude from the University Honors Program and Columbian College of Arts & Sciences at The George Washington University with a Bachelor of Science in biological sciences as a Wilbur V. Harlan Trust recipient and a Bachelor of Arts in Judaic studies as a Max Ticktin Book Prize honoree. During college, he led Alpha Chi Sigma, the co-ed professional chemistry fraternity, through which he advocated for the promotion of STEM fields for women and underserved D.C. youth, served on his university’s EMS agency as an EMT, was active in the Hillel/Jewish Student Association, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Along with his studies and numerous activities, Dr. Rosenbaum took the time and energy to read the entire Affordable Care Act. “Yes, ALL of it,” he said.

His most significant collegiate achievement, however, was regaining control of his health by losing 75 pounds through diet and exercise.

Once he was accepted into UT Southwestern Medical School, his longtime belief that he was destined for a career in geriatric medicine and primary care kicked in. “Participation in the Texas Family Medicine Preceptorship Program between my first and second year of Medical School solidified my dedication to primary care after a month of diverse, complex, exciting, and full-spectrum patient care,” Dr. Rosenbaum said. “The Texas Academy of Family Physicians also provided a haven to find students and physician mentors interested in tackling the social, political, and organizational challenges of championing full-spectrum family medicine.”

At UT Southwestern, he rose to leadership of the Family Medicine Interest Group, was a Test Committee representative, served as a medical student representative on the Parkland Health & Hospital System’s institutional Ethics Committee, participated in United to Serve and in the Multicultural Awareness Week Celebration of Cultures, and is a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

Mentors and supporters at UT Southwestern have included Dr. Kurt Kleinschmidt, Professor of Emergency Medicine; Dr. Tamara McGregor, Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine, and of Internal Medicine; Dr. Dan Sepdham, Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine; Dr. Arlene Sachs, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry; and Carol Wortham, Manager of Student Academic Support Services.

“Herbert is an absolute dynamo of enthusiasm, compassion and professionalism and is so fun to teach and to learn from,” Dr. McGregor said. “He is a kind and thoughtful and committed human being who really cares for his family, his friends, his patients, and his community. Herbert fully embodies all the good characteristics of a family physician as a listener, an advocate, an advisor, a teacher, and an activist. I'm very proud to have been a tiny part of his education and wish him all the best in his great future ahead.”

In his third year, Dr. Rosenbaum particularly enjoyed the outpatient side of medicine in which he could spend time engaging with the biopsychosocial model of medicine and educating patients, which was especially highlighted on his family medicine rotation at John Peter Smith Hospital. He has since become immersed in organized family medicine with the American Academy of Family Physicians (and the Texas state chapter) to advocate for primary care, the physicians who practice it, and the patients it serves.

After completion of his family medicine residency, Dr. Rosenbaum said he would like to pursue a fellowship in geriatric medicine and possibly an additional fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine, with the goal of creating a Federally Qualified Health Center and Patient-Centered Medical Home in an urban, underserved, largely Hispanic, and immigrant community.

“I also want to revive full-spectrum house-call medicine,” he said. “Regardless of my future journey, I want to provide patient and physician advocacy on the local, state, and national levels throughout my career.”

Dr. Sepdham holds the Drs. Malone V. Hill and John W. Pate Professorship in Family Medicine