August 24, 2022
Mary ‘Mimi’ Glodé, MD, retired from active practice in 2014 and is a Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Colorado. Prior to that decision, she was a Professor of Pediatrics and Chief, Section of Pediatric Infectious Disease at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Director of Medical Education, Children’s Hospital Colorado. Dr. Glodé earned her degree from Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. She completed postgraduate fellow work at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland followed by Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the Beth Israel Hospital in Massachusetts before settling in Denver at the University of Colorado.
Dr. Glodé attributes her strong identity as a pediatric infectious diseases doctor as the reason it is important to stay engaged and contribute, even after retirement. The 2013 recipient of PIDS’ Distinguished Physician Award continues to be involved through encouraging fellows to apply for Foundation awards, attending meetings such as IDWeek and the Conference on Pediatric Infectious Diseases in nearby Vail, Colorado, and ongoing contributions to the PIDS Foundation.
It is the Foundation’s presence in vaccine education and promotion, including through research awards for younger physician researchers, that Dr. Glodé feels are a critical contribution to the field. The online Comprehensive Vaccine Education Program (CVEP) modules were singled out as a means for PIDS and the Foundation to help convince people, despite growing vaccine hesitancy, that vaccines have changed the world. She noted that the fact that bacterial meningitis was defeated during her 44-year career was amazing and the response of the ID world to COVID-19 – through education, diagnostics, therapies, vaccine development – was an unbelievable achievement to celebrate.
Dr. Glodé hopes the Foundation can find more ways to fund the specialty through events, large and small, and novel programming. As a beneficiary of spending a research sabbatical in Finland, she would like to explore an “exchange program of sorts where an ID fellow in a U.S. program spends several months at an international site while an ID fellow from the international program comes to the U.S. program.”
Her commitment to her beloved field endures in part due to the “great people” involved and the doors that have been opened by mentors, colleagues, and friends within PIDS and the PIDS Foundation. Dr. Glodé intends to be at the Foundation Annual Dinner in Washington, D.C., to help the Society celebrate women in science during IDWeek.
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