School of Medicine

Sandy Hoar

Assistant Clinical Professor in the School of Medicine and the School of Public Health

Sandy Hoar has developed and taught courses, given a wide variety of lectures, works on a number of domestic and international committees, and is active giving local, regional, domestic, and international presentations on a wide variety of medical and public health subjects. Academic Interests include pragmatic public health and appropriate technology, infectious disease and tropical medicine, cultural competency and community-oriented and community-based primary care (COPC, CBPHC), community-based participatory research (CBPR), and community-campus partnerships, service learning, and working with children as change agents. Current community-engaged activities include being a University Coach with the Interdisciplinary Student Community-Oriented Prevention Enhancement Service (ISCOPES), the Community-Based Primary Health Care (CBPHC) workshop planning committee with the American Public Health Association, including supervising a student abstract and breakout session, supporting Mission to Heal (providing surgical operations and training around the world), board member for Health Improvement and Promotion Alliance, HIP-Ghana, and a just completed white paper on the appropriate response to limited-English proficiency patients in an outpatient clinic.

Susan LeLacheur

Associate Professor of Physician Assistant Studies

Service to the community is largely based in my clinical passion for the care of people with HIV/AIDS. She was a member of the DC HIV Prevention Community Planning Committee from 1996-2000 and on the District of Columbia Mayor’s Advisory Council on HIV Reporting in 2000. I am a volunteer clinician at Whitman Walker Health providing primary and HIV care from 2001 to the present. At GW I served as a faculty preceptor for the Interdisciplinary Student Community-Oriented Prevention Enhancement Service (ISCOPES) until 2012 and for the GW student-run Healthcare, Education, and Active Living Clinic (HEALing) Clinic through 2017.

Gaetano Lotrecchiano

Associate Professor of Clinical Research and Leadership and of Pediatrics

Gaetano Lotrecchiano has been a faculty member at George Washington University since 2005 and spent some of that time as faculty at Children’s National Medical Center. Committed to the training of well-rounded health professionals with the knowledge, insight, and critical thinking skills to navigate the changing American healthcare environment. As such he stresses the growing need for cross-disciplinary skills and the need for agents of change who are interdisciplinary brokers. His research interests include complexity leadership, transdisciplinary team science, and individual and organizational change in healthcare. He is the faculty moderator for the GW University Seminar “Creating a Culture of Collaboration at GWU” and Senior Scholar within the Center for Health Innovation and Policy Research (CHIPR). Serves as the co-chair of the National Science of Team Science Network and is the vice-chair of the International Society for Systems and Complexity Science in Health.

Howard Straker

Assistant Professor of Physician Assistant Studies

Howard Straker directs the joint degree PA/MPH program. He teaches a course called Health, Justice and Society which includes a service learning component where currently the PA students work with community PAs to produce patient education materials that are specific to their population and meet health literacy principles. He also facilitates collaboration between community health clinics and PA and/or public health students to work various projects identified by the clinics. His passion is in preparing health practitioners to serve in undeserved communities.

Maranda Ward

Assistant Professor of Clinical Research and Leadership

Her participatory action research explores how urban youth serving as peer educators in an arts-based program actively construct their identities. As a former Knapp Fellow and she translated her dissertation research on youth identity into a youth-led canvas-based mural on preserving D.C. legacy. Dr. Ward's research is further converted into practice as the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Promising Futures - a youth development pipeline for D.C. youth ages 11-24 that integrates a social justice approach to positive youth development using edu-tainment to invite youth to explore their civic and social identities, social inequities, and health seeking behaviors. She is also a certified trainer for three Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) evidence-based interventions: Focus on Youth + ImPACT, VOICES/VOCES, and Project AIM. She serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

She has strong commitments to service-learning, equity, community legacy, youth development, and honoring youth voice. She recently authored a curriculum based on the Social Change Model of Leadership for undergraduate GW business school students to implement a citywide social entrepreneurship venture with D.C. youth. Her Nashman Service includes participation in the
Black Lives Matter Faculty Learning Community and Community-based Participatory Research Faculty Learning Community.

Erin Wentzell

Assistant Clinical Professor of Physical Therapy and Health Care Sciences Course

Erin Wentzell is director for the doctorate of physical therapy program and teaches a community-based service learning course called Interprofessional Community Practicum. In this course students are partnered with community organizations that work with underserved populations. Over ten partnerships are part of the program, including Playtime Project for Homeless Kids, Catalyst Sports, MDA Camp, HSC Kids in Action, NRH Adaptive Sports, Special Olympics, Park Rx, and the Ministry of Education in Belize. The goal of these partnerships is to provide a true service learning opportunity that is collaborative and reciprocal. In addition to the course, she works collaboratively with the faculty in both Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering. Her Physical Therapy students recently worked with a team of Mechanical Engineering students to create prototypes for a sustainable wheelchair to be used and built by individuals in Belize.

Dr. Narayan

Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. Lalit Narayan MBBA, MA is a primary care internist, medical educator and health workforce researcher. Dr. Narayan is a Course Director for Patients, Populations and Systems, the core clinical public health course taught to all first and second year medical students at GW SMHS. He also co-directs
the Academic Community Service Learning Program and teaches clinical skills and reasoning, adult primary care and global health to medical students and internal medicine residents. His research interests center on the design of medical education systems in low and middle income countries and the design of policies and programs that allow students from marginalized communities to access and succeed in health professional education. His current research projects focus on how medical trainees in India and the United States can be better equipped to practice in multi-lingual clinical and educational settings through the improvement of methods of language training and
assessment.