Title:A teacher with a ‘healing touch’

Earlier this year, the School of Medicine community mourned the loss of beloved physician-educator Donald M. Knowlan (R’60, W’82, HON’04), who joined the faculty in 1961. He served as the director of the Federal Aviation Agency Cardiac Research Institute at Georgetown.

More recent medical school graduates remember Knowlan from the Pellegrino Lecture he delivered from 2008 until 2017 at the School of Medicine’s White Coat Ceremony. In it, he inspired doctors-in-training to focus on “the patient, the patient, the patient” above all else.

“Knowlan always taught with cura personalis in mind, reminding his students to treat the whole person,” says Joe Panarelli (B’03, M’07), who helped launch the Donald M. Knowlan, M.D. Scholarship at Georgetown in 2019.

“When I was on the Medical Alumni Board and we were looking to start a scholarship based on an alumnus who’s had an impact across generations, I suggested Dr. Knowlan and his name resonated with everyone,” says Panarelli.

Panarelli recalls that Knowlan could hear things with his stethoscope during clinical exams that others couldn’t—things that would later be confirmed with an echocardiogram.

Panarelli shares that Knowlan’s key message to students was, “learn how to be a really good doctor by listening to people, learning how to do a clinical exam, and knowing how to talk to patients.” Stephen Ray Mitchell (W’86, MBA’13, Parent’15), dean emeritus for medical education at the School of Medicine, says that upon Knowlan’s retirement, Georgetown commissioned a painting of him that still hangs in the School of Medicine lobby.

“The portrait has become symbolic of the strength of Georgetown,” says Mitchell. “It shows ‘the healing touch.’”

Rather than a portrait in a white coat, Knowlan wanted the painting to be based on a photograph of him working with students.

“There are two students [Eric Vallone (C’90, M’97, R’00) and Katie Burgess (M’01)] with him in the painting,” says Mitchell. “Katie is examining the patient’s abdomen and Don is looking into Katie’s eyes. He told me he wanted to see her eyebrows raise when she felt the spleen. He said, ‘that’s what I spent my career doing: looking for the eyebrows.’”

An inspiration to many alumni—and to current students who are part of the Knowlan Learning Society—Knowlan will continue to be remembered through the Donald M. Knowlan, M.D. Scholarship and the Donald M. Knowlan, M.D. Award, given to a graduating medical student who shows excellence in internal medicine.