On December 31, 2022, Louise-Marie Dembry, MD, MS, MBA, FACP, FSHEA, FIDSA, will ring in a New Year, and a new life. That’s the day she’s retiring from her long and successful career as a hospital epidemiologist.
“My career has been a series of doing things I said I would never do,” says Dembry, professor of medicine (infectious diseases), Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and epidemiology (microbial diseases), Yale School of Public Health (YSPH); and director of hospital epidemiology for the VA CT Healthcare System (VACHS). “I said I wasn’t interested in medicine, and I went into medicine. I said I’d never specialize, and then I specialized. I said I’d never do research, and I ended up doing a research fellowship. And I said I’d never leave Detroit, because my personal life was there, and then I left and made a life for myself in New Haven.”
Her work and contributions have been exceptional, notes Michael Kozal, MD, chief of staff at the VA Palo Alto Healthcare System, and a former VA and Yale colleague. “Louise is not just a brilliant epidemiologist—she is considered THE leading expert in hospital epidemiology in the country,” he says. “She is past president of SHEA (Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America), just about the highest honor in the field. We considered ourselves lucky to recruit her back to the VA in 2015.”
Dembry’s decision to retire stems from a desire to live her life at a slower pace. “COVID impacted everyone getting together, and the last two or three years have been super-busy,” she says. “It’s meant that I lost contact with some people, so I’d like to reconnect. I want to have time for things I enjoy, like catching up on my reading. I also may want to travel.”
This first-generation American has places to go and people to see. Her parents were born in Europe: her mother in France, her father in Germany. Her father came to the U.S. as a child in 1936. Her mother arrived in 1954. Her mother’s father was a doctor from a small French village. During the German occupation, he rode a motorcycle from town to town to care for patients. “Perhaps he was my first inspiration to become a doctor,” she muses.
Growing up in Detroit, Dembry spoke French at home. “Of course, my mother spoke English, but she only wanted to hear French,” she says. “I feel strong ties to France; it’s where her family is. I used to visit them every year, but since COVID, I haven’t been back. So a trip is definitely on my radar.”
Dembry’s interest in medicine was kindled when she was a high school senior. A severe case of pneumonia put her in the hospital for ten days. “Essentially, I was fascinated by my own case,” she says. “I asked the doctors endless questions: ‘Why were they doing this test or treatment?’ ‘When would I feel better?’ I began to think about becoming a doctor.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree in zoology from the University of Michigan, Dembry applied to medical school. To her great disappointment, she was not accepted. She was told that if she wanted to try again, she could, but it wasn’t likely she’d get in. To strengthen her application, she went to graduate school. With a master’s in biology, she applied to medical school again. But it took her a third try to finally gain acceptance. She enrolled at Wayne State University because it was close to her home.
Remaining at Wayne State for her residency and a fellowship in infectious diseases, she developed a keen interest in hospital epidemiology. “Back then it wasn’t a career track or subspecialty, the way it is now,” she says. Working with a mentor with a deep connection at Yale, she learned about an opening for a combined associate hospital epidemiologist at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) and hospital epidemiologist position at the VACHS location in West Haven. She interviewed for the job with YNHH epidemiologist Walter Hierholzer, MD, and was offered the position.
Even though she had said she’d never leave Detroit, this opportunity was too good to pass up. She told herself she would take the job, stay in New Haven for two years, learn everything she could from Dr. Hierholzer, and then return to Detroit.
As an assistant professor, she divided her time between YNHH and West Haven. Hierholzer, a founder of the hospital epidemiology specialty, became her mentor. As a junior faculty member, she faced some fascinating epidemiological challenges. Mark Russi, MD, MPH, professor of medicine (occupational medicine), YSM, and of epidemiology (environmental health) YSPH, recalls one of them. “In 1994, we had the chance to work together on only the third case of Sabiá virus in the world,” he says. A Yale researcher had been exposed in a laboratory accident. Also known as known as Brazilian hemorrhagic fever, this virus is highly infectious and lethal.
“When you’re treating the third case of anything in the world, with a 50 percent mortality rate, it’s a big deal,” says Russi. “Even as a young scientist, Louise was very astute. I was glad to have the benefit of her deep knowledge and careful decision-making. Fortunately, this case had a positive outcome.”
As Dembry rose through the ranks, she mentored junior faculty, particularly female faculty, as she had been mentored. Lydia Aoun-Barakat, MD, associate professor of medicine, director of Yale Infectious Disease Ambulatory Services, and medical director of the Nathan Smith Clinic at YNHH, was one of many who benefited.
“I met Louise in 1998 when I was doing a fellowship in infectious diseases,” she says. “I’m of Lebanese descent, and we had an immediate connection because of her French background and familiarity with many cultures, including my own.”
She adds that Dembry was an astute clinician and a wonderful teacher. “She was a pioneer in instituting hand hygiene, and coached me on establishing a hand hygiene quality improvement project in a previous job I held at Waterbury Hospital. It was quite successful in improving hospital-wide hand hygiene.”
When Walter Hierholzer, MD, retired in 1999, Dembry applied for his job and was accepted, leaving the VA to become the YNHH hospital epidemiologist. A few years later, an international public health crisis would test her clinical and managerial skills.
In 2003, a serious outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) left hospitals reeling. Caused by a strain of the coronavirus, SARS was first discovered in Asia in February 2003, quickly spreading worldwide. The situation was particularly grim in Toronto, where SARS infected patients, health care workers and visitors in several hospitals, forcing a shutdown of vital services.
Dembry says, “A colleague in Toronto reached out to few of us and said, ‘We’re really burned out—we need help. Is anyone willing to come?’” She and two colleagues traveled to Toronto to work at a hospital where a second SARS outbreak had just started. This experience would prove to be very useful down the road.
A year later, Dembry was named associate medical director for emergency preparedness at Yale New Haven Health, playing pivotal roles during the 2009 flu pandemic and with Ebola prep in 2014 at YNHH. “These efforts built on my experience with SARS in Toronto,” she says.
In 2011, Dembry was named a full professor, an event she describes as “a pivotal point in my career.” Four years later, she became president-elect of SHEA. When the president of SHEA called to tell her she won the election, she was shocked. “I told him I never expected to win,” she says. “He responded, ‘Why not? Your colleagues really respect you.’ I guess I’m a little too humble. I encourage young female faculty not to be that way. I tell them, celebrate your achievements.”
That same year, she was recruited back to VACHS to become director of hospital epidemiology. At the time, Ann Fisher, MD, associate professor of clinical internal medicine, was acting hospital epidemiologist.
“Louise became my mentor and basically gave me career makeover,” says Fisher. “She has mentored and supported so many people through the years, particularly junior female faculty. We have a program at Yale where you’re assigned a mentor, but Louise doesn’t wait to be assigned—she just mentors on her own. She helped advance my career, encouraging me to serve on regional and national committees to connect with peers and gain visibility. It was incredibly helpful.”
In her new role, Dembry was charged with strengthening infection prevention. After that, she was tasked with leading a group to revamp and improve sterile processing. “This was an enormous project with a huge time commitment,” says Fisher. “Louise, as always, did an excellent job. Just as this project finished, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Talk about luck—that someone who was at the forefront of the SARS outbreak would be leading our department through COVID. She was like an army general, assembling her forces. She filled us with confidence, knowing she was leading the charge.”
“What I will always remember about Louise is the way she helped transform our hospital into pandemic mode,” says Kozal. “She knew just what to do. Thirty-six negative pressure rooms were set up, policies were put in place, and we had strict procedures about masking. Our mission was education, education, education. We made weekly presentations to clinical leaders and held Zoom calls to update staff on what we were doing. Because of these efforts, we were exquisitely prepared and had an incredible response.”
And it wasn’t just VACHS that benefited. The U.S. VA is organized geographically into 18 Veterans Integrated Service Networks, or VISNs—regional health systems working together to provide greater access to care. “Our VISN asked Louise to provide guidance for the entire VISN,” notes Kozal. “It’s an instance where her work had national impact.”
In September 2020, Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie paid a special visit to the West Haven VA and the Newington VA Clinic. He was there to commend the two hospitals for their outstanding efforts in preventing the spread of COVID-19 among staff and patients. Addressing the staff and members of the media, Wilkie said the West Haven VA had earned special kudos: “This is one of the safest places in America for veterans. It has the lowest infection rate amongst VA employees in the country, and probably the lowest infection rate for veterans too.”
Keeping staff and patients safe and healthy has always been Dembry’s highest priority, at the VA and beyond. Among her other appointments, she is a member of the Connecticut Healthcare Associated Infection Advisory Committee appointed by the Commissioner of Public Health. She is also member of the CT DPH HAI Multidisciplinary Antimicrobial Resistance Advisory Group. In addition to serving as president of SHEA, she was board chair in 2016 and served as the SHEA liaison to the CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee from 2017 to 2021.
Apart from all her accomplishments, she is most proud of her mentoring. “I’ve focused on junior faculty, particularly women,” she says. At an infectious disease conference she recently attended, one of her MPH students from four years ago approached her. “She said that taking my course had inspired her to do an ID fellowship, and now she’s doing a hospital epidemiology fellowship,” says Dembry. “It’s gratifying to know I’ve had an impact on someone’s career.”
As Dembry gained a national and international reputation for her work in emerging infections and pandemic preparedness, she never lost sight of what is relevant and important locally and in her own institution, says Aoun-Barakat. “She continues to be a loyal friend and an advocate for women in medicine. We were very lucky at Yale to have her in her role for the past decades.”
She adds: “Louise has built a strong and sustainable infrastructure for infection prevention on both campuses, YNHH and the VA. Her legacy is that these institutions are better prepared, stronger, and safer because of her character, hard work, and dedication.”
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