Lucy Tompkins : An Oral History
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Lucy S. Tompkins, the Lucy Becker Professor of Medicine, Emerita, provides an overview of the educational and career path that led her to join the faculty in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Stanford School of Medicine in 1983. She reflects on the challenges facing women in science and medicine in the 1960s and 1970s; discusses her work on pLST1000 (a plasmid found in resistant strains of Serratia marcescens) and her research on Campylobacter pylori; and shares anecdotes from hospital epidemiology investigations, including tracking down the source of Legionella pneumophila and Legionella dumoffii infections in patients and identifying the cause of bacillary angiomatosis in immunocompromised patients. Tompkins provides a sense of the evolution of the diagnostic laboratory and hospital epidemiologist role at Stanford, discusses the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training Program she has nurtured, and speaks about her efforts to make her division and the School of Medicine a welcoming place for fellows and new faculty, including in her role as associate dean for academic affairs. She speaks about the leadership roles she played in the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic, providing a sense of the role Stanford’s Infection Control Committee played in determining policies for patient care and hospital and clinic access. Throughout, she shares memories of her late husband and mentor and expert microbe hunter, Stanley Falkow.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Extent | 1 text file |
| Place | Stanford (Calif.) |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
| Date created | October 1, 2021 - November 10, 2021 |
| Language | English |
| Digital origin | born digital |
Creators/Contributors
| Interviewee | Tompkins, Lucy S. | |
|---|---|---|
| Creator | Tompkins, Lucy S. | |
| Interviewer | Marine-Street, Natalie J. | |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
| Subject | Tompkins, Lucy S. |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford University |
| Subject | Stanford University. Department of Microbiology and Immunology |
| Subject | Molecular epidemiology |
| Genre | Interview |
Bibliographic information
| Biographical Profile | Dr. Lucy S. Tompkins MD PhD received her PhD in Microbiology at Georgetown University, her MD at Geisel Dartmouth Medical School, and her infectious disease and clinical microbiology fellowships at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Following her fellowship, she was Assistant Professor (tenure track) in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Washington School of Medicine. She was recruited to Stanford as Assistant Professor of Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology (University line) in 1983. Currently, she is the Lucy Becker Professor of Medicine (Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine) and Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford School of Medicine. She coined the term “molecular epidemiology.” Among her contributions to infection prevention, during her tenure as the hospital epidemiologist and director of the microbiology laboratory at SHC, she investigated a prolonged outbreak of Legionella infections among cardiac surgery patients and published several manuscripts in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) cited as among the best epidemiology papers in the literature in the previous ten years. She has more than fifty peer reviewed publications in the field of hospital epidemiology. At the national level, Dr. Tompkins has played a key role in the Infectious Diseases Society of America, an international membership association supporting the role of physicians and scientists in the field of infectious diseases. Dr. Tompkins has served on several national committees, including as a Member of the Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices (ACIP, CDC), as Member of the NIH/NIAID BMT-1 Study Section, and Member of the Board of Scientific Counselors, Clinical Center, NIH. She was a member of the Mars Sample Hazard Protocol Science Oversight and Review Committee for NASA and an ad hoc consultant for the National Academy of Sciences. |
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| Related item |
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| Finding Aid | |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/wj052dc3143 |
| Location | SC0932 |
| Repository | Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
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