The George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) is honored to recognize Lara Oboler, M.D. ’95, member of the SMHS Dean’s Council, who was awarded the 2014 Alumni Outstanding Service Award, April 3.
Oboler was recognized for embodying the GW mission of enabling lifelong engagement, gathering a voice for alumni, and building a culture of philanthropy. Oboler has worked tirelessly to create an environment of shared ideas and networking opportunities amongst those in the SMHS alumni family and was the inspiration for the successful Women’s Physician Networking Luncheons held in Washington, D.C. and New York City.
With expertise in the business of medicine, Oboler has shared her knowledge with current medical students. In 2012, she and her husband, Louis Jaffe, established the H. George Mandel Endowed Memorial Scholarship, in memory of Oboler’s favorite professor. This need-based scholarship is given to a student in their final semester, to be applied to their student loan debt. Oboler has also extended her support to young alumni and students through hosting New York alumni in her home each year since 2011.
Oboler has had great success in her professional life. As an interventional cardiologist at the Lenox Hill Heart and Vascular Institute in New York City, she founded The Women and Heart Disease Program at Lenox Hill Hospital. She also serves as an attending cardiologist for Community Outreach, a program that provides medical services to the underprivileged in lower Manhattan.
As the founder of PregPrep, a new, innovative approach to help women get pregnant, Oboler has also found a way to help women create ideal conditions for conception. When personally trying to conceive, Oboler scoured medical research and found that mucolytics (generally used to break up chest congestion that develops in respiratory illness) can thin cervical mucus, making it less sticky, so the sperm can swim more easily to the egg. Mucolytics often work in opposition to the mechanism in many birth control pills, which use progesterone to thicken the cervical mucus and prevent sperm from reaching the egg. Using this information, Oboler was soon pregnant. She founded PregPrep to give women a medically sound, natural product to help take control of their conception.
The 2013 Alumni Outstanding Service Award winner was Richard Popiel, M.D. ’93.
