Alumni

Dr. Gielissen earned her medical degree at the University of Chicago - Pritzker School of Medicine before completing her Internal Medicine / Pediatrics training at Yale New Haven Hospital. She completed the General Internal Medicine Medical Education Fellowship and an MHS through the Medical Education Pathway (MHS-Med Ed) in 2018. She previously served as the Ambulatory Associate Program Director for the Yale Traditional Internal Medicine Program, Associate Clerkship Director for the Internal Medicine Clerkship, and directed the Yale Pediatrics Clinician-Educator Track (PCET) and Yale Internal Medicine Clinician-Educator Distinction (CED). In 2019, she joined as a co-editor of the Yale Office-Based Medicine (YOBM), an ambulatory curriculum used at over 300 programs across the country. She is currently an adjunct faculty at Yale. Dr. Gielissen's scholarship focuses on Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) as a form of assessment in both the Undergraduate and Graduate Medical Education space. She also performs qualitative research on Entrustment Decision-Making and on faculty development to enhance the quality of feedback and evaluation in clinical settings.

Thilan Wijesekera, MD, MHS received his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry before completing his residency training in Yale University’s Primary Care Residency Program. He subsequently completed a General Internal Medicine Fellowship in Medical Education at Yale University School of Medicine, during which he received a Master of Health Science degree in the Medical Education Pathway.   In 2018, he joined the Academic Hospitalist Program in the Yale Section of General Internal Medicine.  He is active in medical education, particularly at Yale University School of Medicine, where he has roles as the Director of Clinical Reasoning and a section leader in the Interprofessional Longitudinal Clinical Experience. He also has a role in the Teaching and Learning Center as an Associate for Clinical Reasoning Educator Development, where he provides and collaborates on consultations, workshops, and scholarship related to teaching clinical reasoning.   Dr. Wijesekera's educational interests include clinical skills, curriculum development, interprofessional education and mentorship for medical students and residents.  His research interests include clinical reasoning, diagnostic error, and interprofessional education with recent publications in JAMA Internal Medicine, Academic Medicine, and Journal of General Internal Medicine.  He gives faculty development workshops regionally and nationally on teaching clinical reasoning and diagnostic error, on which he completed a fellowship with the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (2018).

Dr. Nate Wood is an Instructor of Medicine and the inaugural Director of Culinary Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and Irving and Alice Brown Teaching Kitchen at Yale New Haven Health. Board-certified in internal medicine and obesity medicine, Nate practices as a primary care physician, serves as a core faculty member in the Yale Primary Care residency program, and co-leads the weight management clinic at the New Haven Primary Care Consortium. Before coming to Yale, Nate studied in the School of Culinary Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. As both a physician and culinary school graduate, he has dedicated his career to the field of “Food Is Medicine,” firmly believing that what we eat can be simultaneously healthy and delicious. As the Director of Culinary Medicine, Nate oversees many patient care, medical education, community outreach, and research endeavors related to healthy cooking and eating. Nate is particularly interested in media and education — using print, television, and other multimedia to engage both medical professionals and the general public in learning about the connection between diet and health. His clinical and research interests include culinary medicine, preventive medicine, obesity medicine, and nutrition education. Nate recently completed his Master of Health Science in Medical Education, his thesis project focusing on the development, implementation, and testing of a novel culinary medicine curriculum for medical trainees. Nate's ultimate goal is to combine his passions for medicine, food, education, and media to empower others to enjoy food in a healthy way.