It’s not often that someone comes from as much of a medical family and Penn legacy as Joan MacCracken, M’71. Joan MacCracken has grandparents, uncles, parents, cousins, and nieces and nephews with ties to Penn and the Perelman School of Medicine going back more than a century. “My family gave me tremendous role models,” she said, “and they instilled a love of Penn that I was later able to live firsthand.”
While she followed in her family’s footsteps, graduating from the Perelman School of Medicine in 1971, she chose to carve out her own expertise, eventually caring for Navajo people through the Indian Health Service (HIS). That experience changed her life and the trajectory of her career. She went on to become a pediatric endocrinologist, caring for people in remote areas like Bethel, Alaska and northeastern Nicaragua.
On the occasion of her 50th Reunion, MacCracken established the McCracken/MacCracken (McMac) Student Travel Award for Indigenous Health — creating an opportunity for Penn medical students to challenge their cultural biases, familiar surroundings, and medical aptitude. The McMac Award provides financial assistance to two final-year Perelman School of Medicine students participating in educational and experiential learning at Indigenous health sites in the United States.
“Perelman School of Medicine students receive really crucial experience caring for a variety of populations in and around Philadelphia — a city that is home to a very diverse collection of people from all over the world,” she explains. “But one group of individuals that students and physicians in Philadelphia do not see regularly are those of indigenous descent. While every tribe is different and every individual person is very different, having clinicians who understand common health conditions that indigenous people face, and who understand their specific cultures, is imperative.”
For This Family, There’s Quite a Bit in a Name
In creating the Award, MacCracken drew inspiration from two major figures — and names — from her family tree. Her med school yearbook contains a dedication to her grandfathers: Josiah C. McCracken, M’1901, and Henry Noble MacCracken.
While at Penn, Joe McCracken was an All-American guard in football and also excelled in track and field, breaking the world record in the 16-pound hammer throw in 1898 and earning two Olympic medals in 1900 in Paris. He went on to be a dedicated medical missionary in China for more than 35 years. In 1906, the University of Pennsylvania Christian Association asked him to visit Canton and explore the potential to develop a medical school at that location. After seven busy years in Canton, he moved to Shanghai to become dean of a newly-combined University of Pennsylvania Medical School at St. John’s University.
“When we talk about global health, we often think that we need to travel halfway around the world,” his granddaughter Joan MacCracken says. “But there are unique experiences and important work that we can do here in the States.”
In creating the McMac Award, she notes the reciprocity of the learning experience. “The IHS, in general, is very good about meeting people where they are and specifically targeting care for their patients. Whether that is through at home visits to remote areas for assessments and vaccinations or incorporating traditional medicine and individuals’ beliefs with western medicine, clinicians really take a whole-person approach to medicine. They also are great problem solvers.”
If you would like to contribute to the McCracken/MacCracken (McMac) Student Travel Award for Indigenous Health — or discover how you can impact medical education in a way most meaningful to you — please contact Kathleen Margay at 215-873-3793 or kmargay@upenn.edu.