MAGIS Society Induction Ceremony To Honor Kaltman and Rennert

Posted in News Stories  |  Tagged Commencement 2025, MAGIS, medical education

(May 9, 2025) — Stacey Kaltman, PhD, a psychiatry professor with expertise in physician-patient communication, and Wolfgang Rennert, MD, PhD, a professor of pediatrics known for taking advantage of teachable moments, will be inducted into the MAGIS Society of Master Teachers on May 15.

Since its inception in 2003, the MAGIS Society has honored excellence in teaching medicine in clinical and pre-clinical settings. The society’s name comes from the Latin adverb “magis,” meaning “more greatly,” and is a shortened version of the Jesuit motto “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,” or “for the greater glory of God.”

The induction ceremony will be held on May 15 at 5:00 p.m. in the Goldberg Auditorium, Gorman Building at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. The winners of the 2025 Kaiser Permanente Award, Megha Fitzpatrick, MD, and Caitlin Coker, PhD, will also be honored at the event.

Stacey Kaltman, PhD

After Stacey Kaltman, PhD, graduated with an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, she worked with Aaron T. Beck, MD, the father of cognitive behavioral therapy, at the Center for Cognitive Therapy.

“The psychologists who worked there I thought had really appealing careers because they were treating patients, they were teaching, they were doing research,” said Kaltman, professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine. “They just seemed like they had very impactful, meaningful and varied careers.”

“I have absolutely found this to be true,” she added. “My training as a clinical psychologist prepared me to do each of these important things, and I truly enjoy all aspects of my career.”

During her graduate work in clinical psychology at Catholic University of America, Kaltman attended a national meeting and met Bonnie L. Green, PhD, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Georgetown, with expertise in trauma and mental health.

“She did foundational trauma research that was fundamental to the field’s understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder,” Kaltman said. “She was doing very important research that I wanted to contribute to, so I waited until the end of her presentation and got up the nerve to talk to her.” Kaltman started working with Green and progressed from a volunteer to paid staff before becoming a faculty member in 2002.

With Ted Liao, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry, Kaltman teaches the physician-patient communication curriculum to first- and second-year medical students. This includes basic skills such as introducing themselves to patients and making patients feel comfortable, as well as more advanced skills like breaking bad news and encouraging patients to change negative health behaviors.

“Our job is basically to get the students ready so when they go into the hospital for their core clerkships, they can meaningfully participate,” she said. “It’s the spectrum of complexity from the most basic to really challenging communication tasks.”

Using her background in cognitive behavioral therapy, Kaltman helps students develop coping strategies in her work as an educator. For example, medical students who are starting the clinical part of their education can experience feelings of inadequacy and imposter syndrome, and Kaltman strives to prepare them for that experience.

“These students are going into a setting where everyone is going to be more experienced and knowledgeable than them,” she said. “We talk about thoughts and how to respond to unhelpful thoughts in a way that is encouraging and productive.”

Simple stress-reduction practices, like writing down good things that happen every day, have been proven to positively impact one’s mental health. “We know there’s always good and bad, but intentionally spending some time focusing on the good is really beneficial,” Kaltman said.

In addition to teaching physician-patient communication, Kaltman teaches in the MedStar Health Teaching Scholars program, a two-year longitudinal program intended to build a community of scholarly educators and medical education researchers within the MedStar Health system.

Kaltman also serves as the ombudsperson for School of Medicine students. “It’s a really meaningful position because I work with students when they’re struggling, when they’re at their most vulnerable, and I provide them with support and resources,” she said.

Having dedicated colleagues has been consistent throughout Kaltman’s tenure at Georgetown. “The people who come to Georgetown and stay at Georgetown are really smart and engaged and committed to the mission,” she said.

“I regularly evaluate how meaningful my work is to me to make sure that I am on the right path,” Kaltman added. “And I feel so lucky that when I do make that judgment, my response is always yes!”

Wolfgang Rennert, MD, PhD

With experience in pediatrics, anesthesia, surgery, internal and emergency medicine, Wolfgang Rennert, MD, PhD, has spent his career following his interests, something he encourages residents to do throughout their own careers. 

“I think what I’m most proud of, especially when it comes to my time as a residency director, is that I always focused on the individual resident’s development,” said Rennert, professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and medical director of the Blood and Marrow Collection Program at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. “It was always my focus not to get them to where I wanted them to be, but to where they wanted to be themselves.” 

Planning to work in the developing world after graduation, Rennert earned his medical and doctoral degrees from Albert Ludwig University in Germany. In 1988, he started working in pediatrics at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, South Africa, the largest hospital in Africa, then worked in emergency medicine at a township clinic north of Johannesburg, where he met his future wife, a psychologist at the clinic. 

When Rennert’s wife received a scholarship to study in Washington, D.C., he applied to work at Georgetown in pediatrics. “Georgetown actually was the only place I’ve worked in the U.S.,” he said. “It was my home from the beginning.” 

After South Africa liberated itself from apartheid, Rennert and his wife returned there in 1996. “Mandela called all the expats back to rebuild the ‘rainbow nation,’ so we packed our bags and moved back to South Africa,” he said. Back at Baragwanath Hospital, Rennert worked in pediatric nephrology until he received an opportunity to go back to Georgetown in 2001 as an associate professor of pediatrics and associate residency program director. He was named residency program director in 2002.

Rather than giving lectures, Rennert prefers to take advantage of teachable moments. “My favorite place to teach is at the bedside,” he said. “When a resident would say, ‘I can’t examine this child because they are crying,’ I would say, ‘Well, tell me about their crying.’”

To teach third-year medical students about child development milestones, Rennert wanted them to understand the way that babies develop gross motor skills from head to toe and how those skills come together to allow for more complex motions.

“When we talked about when babies learn to roll over, I had the students roll over on the floor and analyze their motions in detail,” he said. “First comes rolling front to back, then comes back to front. If you do that rolling on the floor yourself, you will understand and never forget it. And we had fun in the process.” 

Inspired by the blood and bone marrow donors he has worked with, Rennert started working as medical director of the Blood and Marrow Collection Program at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in December 2019. 

“These donors are incredible people,” he said. “They undergo a potentially painful procedure under general anesthesia where they have to go to the hospital, have some doctor stick sharp needles into their back to get a liter or more of bone marrow to help some stranger they will never meet. And they do it out of the goodness of their heart.” 

The bone marrow collection program at MedStar Georgetown is the largest in the country, providing opportunities to mentor physicians interested in learning about the procedure. “We have started a mentorship program where physicians from other hospitals come to spend a week with us to observe how we do these procedures,” Rennert said. “At many places, they may do one a month. We do five a week.” 

Rennert also works as medical director for the Rostropovich Vishnevskaya Foundation, a global health foundation closely associated with the Department of Pediatrics at Georgetown. The foundation has made a name for itself helping low- and middle-income countries to introduce essential vaccines into their national vaccination programs. Rennert has worked for the foundation in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and India.

“We are citizens of the world,” he said. “And we are accountable in our actions to every citizen in that world.”

Rennert appreciates that he has had the opportunity to explore different areas of medicine at Georgetown. “I’m very grateful for what Georgetown has done for me,” he said. “They gave me the freedom to design my career the way that suited me best.”

Kat Zambon
GUMC Communications