Megan Fix, MD
Distinguished Service Award
For Megan Fix, MD, a sense of connection is the most important aspect of both medicine and life. In her roles as assistant dean of student affairs for the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine and vice chair of education for the Department of Emergency Medicine, Fix has used the idea of connection in coaching medical students, residents, advanced-practice clinicians, and faculty about ways they can deepen their relationship with patients, each other, and their higher purpose as physicians.
Fix discovered her love for the fields of teaching and emergency medicine during her time as an undergraduate and medical student at Stanford University. She completed her residency at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency Program and has worked as an emergency physician clinician educator ever since.
“I feel amazingly honored to be able to provide care for anybody, any time, and in any circumstance—my patients give me the honor to be a physician,” Fix said. “I also feel that I’m an educator, and that speaks to the community and medical school aspect of this. Being an educator is very important to me.”
Since joining the University of Utah in 2010, Fix has built a strong reputation as a mentor and coach through her involvement in several Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine educational initiatives, including RealMD, Early Career Coaching, and the Academy of Health Sciences Educators. She recalls a time, years ago, when she collaborated with a medical student on a talk she gave for RealMD—one that highlighted Fix’s own struggles with mental health. She and her student connected on a deep level, sharing with each other some of their most vulnerable moments. “I said to her, ‘The hard work is the good work because I really feel that in challenge there is strength, and we all can grow together,” Fix recalled.
The student ultimately pursued her residency in emergency medicine at the University of Utah—and Fix recently attended her wedding. “She said those same words during the wedding in her vows: ‘The hard work is the good work,’” Fix said. “I feel we had connected so much.”
Fix feels “overwhelmed with the support” she has received during her tenure at the university and credits her mentors within the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine for encouraging her to approach her work with creativity and innovation—and to go beyond just teaching facts to embracing her role as an educator.
“I feel amazingly honored to be able to provide care for anybody, any time, and in any circumstance—my patients give me the honor to be a physician.”
“An educator inspires and helps establish the idea that we can always grow, that we can learn together, and that we can talk not just about the material but the person. I’ve really tried to represent that here at the University of Utah,” she said. “I’ve been supported here to develop myself as a physician educator, and I’m incredibly thankful.”
Above all, Fix is grateful for the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the patients and students for whom she cares so deeply. “I’ve benefited from many great educators in my life,” she said. “Being able to give back and provide any type of positive impact on the lives of those that I’m around—that gives me tremendous joy.”