When she was five years old, Donna S. Hanes, ’92, made an announcement to her parents: she was going to become a doctor. “I pictured myself being a small town doctor out in the country,” she recalls. “It was a nice quiet setting for a five-year-old girl.”

In 1992, she fulfilled her dream by graduating from Maryland. But her life is far from the bucolic country setting she pictured as a child. Hanes is a single mother with a 10-year-old son. She has a dog, grinds out a long commute each day, lives in the city and, at any one time, has 40 medical students under her tutelage as the clerkship director for internal medicine. What’s more, she heads a 75-patient dialysis unit in Baltimore, is director of senior medical rotations, and is an associate professor of medicine—not to mention her activities outside of work. “I had no idea growing up that things were like this,” Hanes admits. “My life is very busy, but it works. I love it.”

At 43, Hanes’ spirited personality has already left an indelible stamp on the medical school. And she is having an impact on the group that may count the most—the students. Last spring she was selected by the students to receive the golden apple award, a coveted prize honoring the school’s top clinician. She also was selected for a humanism award for her caring and compassionate demeanor.

“There are a lot of great teachers at the university but only a few who stand out to everybody almost universally as being great teachers and she is one of them,” says Timothy Dougherty, ’08, who now interns at George Washington University Medical Center.
Hanes says she was “shocked” and “overwhelmed” by the awards. “I think it was just my exposure to the students. They know that I care,” she says.

If the patients at the dialysis clinic in Baltimore had a say in the matter, they, too, would have voted for Hanes. Twice a week she works at the clinic seeing about 75 patients, most of whom live below the poverty line. Some are on Medicaid, some are homeless, and most are from Baltimore’s inner city. “To them, a dollar is a really big deal,”
she says.

It is at the clinic where Hanes can connect with her patients. She jokes with them, asks them about their families, and quizzes them on their diet. She’ll even chide them for admitting to eating salty foods.
“She is wonderful with her patients,” says Neda Frayha, MD, a third-year internal medicine resident at the medical center who shadowed Hanes for a day at the clinic. “They clearly loved seeing her. They were always so happy and full of smiles. And she could tell me their entire stories just by glancing across the room.”

Hanes admires her patients’ determination to make it to the clinic three times a week for their four-hour dialysis treatments. Some patients wake up at 4 a.m., to begin a four-hour journey to the clinic, hopping from one city bus to the next. “It amazes me,” Hanes says.

What makes Hanes so special is that she comes across as the plain spoken, compassionate, country doctor that she dreamed of as a little girl. She connects with her patients, understands her students’ struggles, and is intensely smart. She can teach at a sophisticated level, but isn’t afraid to joke around or chat about her favorite football team—the Washington Redskins.

Like her students and patients she labors to juggle the demands of a busy life. “She would be a fantastic role model for anyone who is going to have kids or who eventually will have kids,” Dougherty adds. “It is nice to see someone who is making it work.”
“She shares things about her own life with the students,” says Frayha. “She is very approachable.”
Hanes’ 10-year-old son is the most important part of her life. She is all business when arriving at the medical school, jamming as much into her day as possible; so she can get out the door and head home to Christopher, who plays baseball and loves cars. “I refused to get a nanny because doing so would allow me the flexibility of not getting home in a timely manner. The way things are now, I have to leave when I have to leave,” she says.

Outside the office she is involved in a variety of activities from mentoring Montgomery County High School students to serving as parent council president for her son’s school where she raises money to fight various diseases.
One of four children, Hanes grew up outside of Washington, D.C. Her father sold insurance for a time but later opened a store selling wallpaper (which he continues operating today), while her mother was a school teacher.
Because she always loved the idea of becoming a doctor, Hanes began looking for ways to learn about medicine. In high school she worked at a health clinic, and in college she joined the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department where she received training as a paramedic. But it was her third year of medical school—and meeting Frank M. Calia, MD—that shaped her as a teacher. As chairman of medicine, Calia knew every student by name even before they started his rotation. Calia was also a favorite of the students, receiving 21 teaching awards during a distinguished career.
“It was so impressive yet so disarming that the professor would take the time to go out of his way to know which students were coming on his rotation,” Hanes says. “It forced us as students to be engaged and involved because we knew he was watching. It forced us and encouraged us to be active participants, which enriched the experience. That episode shaped me as a teacher.”

After graduating in 1992, Hanes remained at Maryland for her internship and residency. In 1995, she did a fellowship in nephrology and a year later was voted chief resident primarily because of her knack for teaching. By 1998, Hanes was directing the nephrology fellowship program and in 2001 was named clerkship director.
While she has patterned herself after her mentor, Hanes’ style is clearly all her own. “She is her own person and genuinely loves her job,” Frayha concludes.