Dena Hofkosh, emeritus professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine and perhaps best known for directing Pitt’s pediatrics residency program at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh from 1997 to 2014, died Sept. 26, 2023, at 68.
Ann Thompson met Hofkosh in 1982, when Thompson was a young faculty member and Hofkosh was herself a third-year resident at Children’s. “She was one of the warmest and most supportive and creative faculty members we’ve had,” Thompson said.
Hofkosh’s career began with a focus on identifying developmental problems in the youngest children “and the kinds of support (pediatricians) needed to give families coping with these challenges,” she added. “It turned out to be very similar to the way she supported faculty for the next 40 years.”
While directing the pediatrics residency program, Hofkosh helped to develop the Combined Program in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and the Triple Board Program, as well as specialized training tracks within the Pediatrics Residency, including the Pediatric Advocacy, Leadership and Service Program. She supervised the training of approximately 700 pediatricians in total.
Hofkosh served as her department’s first vice chair of faculty affairs, creating the Office of Faculty Development, which instituted programs for faculty orientation, mentoring, educational skills development and career support. She also established the department’s Wellbeing Taskforce and several other programs to promote physician wellness.
Indeed, says Thompson, “through it all she was always looking for opportunities that opened new ways for people to follow their passions. She was really, really good at supporting faculty, helping leaders be supportive of faculty, working out conflicts. She had the same type of warmth and supportiveness toward everyone.”
Even when dealing with residents who needed further instruction, Thompson said, the most severe reprimand Hofkosh could muster was “‘Could we talk about that?’ She was never harsh, always out to solve problems in a constructive, profoundly kind way.”
Hofkosh also established a program supporting LGBT students, residents and faculty and established electives for students on LGBT support. She had the ability, Thompson said, “to open her arms wide to include all kinds of people and make them feel they are all the most important people.”
Sylvia Choi, another of Hofkosh’s former residents and colleagues, remembered Hofkosh as an important mentor and friend: “She had a direct impact on so many of us as residents. She really cared ... not just about the patient and their physical development but their being and their family.”
And, Choi added, “she wanted us to be good pediatricians but she also wanted us to be well and be whole people. Even before everyone else was talking about burnout, she was talking about mental health” for physicians.
Her faculty development work also shone brightly, Choi said: “She was very good at helping people think about what they wanted from their career and how they might achieve that. She wouldn’t tell people what they should do; she would help them see what they wanted to do.
“She modeled how to live life to the fullest. She worked hard and she played hard and she had high expectations of everyone, including herself. Yet she never expected anything from you that you weren’t capable of. She had a way of encouraging everyone to do their best.”
Born in New York City, Dena Hofkosh earned her B.A. and M.D. degrees from New York University, joining the Pitt faculty in 1984 and retiring in 2021. She was also president of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors. The School of Medicine established the Dena Hofkosh Medical School Pride Alliance Scholarship Fund in her honor.
She is survived by wife Kim Patterson; daughters Julia Martin (Derek) and Sarah Weiskopf (Mikynsi Steffan); sister Sonia Hofkosh; brother-in-law Jon Hulbert and their children, Eliza Hofkosh-Hulbert (Ledah Wilcox) and Nina Hofkosh-Hulbert.
Memorial gifts are suggested to the Dena Hofkosh MD Endowed Fund for Faculty Development at UPMC Children’s Hospital (justgiving.com/hofkosh) or the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Dena Hofkosh Medical School Pride Alliance Scholarship Fund (engage.pitt.edu/project/27349).
— Marty Levine