Alumni Profile: John Batsis '92
Physician & Associate Professor
Guided by the principle that hard work and perseverance always pay off, John Batsis ’92 has been striving to improve the quality of life of older adults for most of his career.
Currently an associate professor at Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine, as well as clinician-researcher at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, John is tackling the challenge of diagnosing cognitive impairment at an earlier stage. He is co-leading a multidisciplinary research project that brings together professionals with varied backgrounds, including computer scientists, neuropsychologists and linguists. It aims to use voice assistant systems – think Amazon’s Alexa – to detect changes in speech patterns that may signal the development of dementia, such as Alzheimer's, at some point in the future.
John takes great pride in his professional achievements. “It has been exciting from an academic standpoint,” he says. “I have had excellent support that has allowed me to mentor future generations of professionals, participate at the local and national levels in professional societies, and secure grants from many funding bodies, including the National Institute of Health. Ultimately, my hope is that the work of our team can help the patients and families I have the privilege of caring for on a day-to-day basis. It’s about furthering science and applying it to real-world clinical care.”
At the same time, he notes that balance in one’s life is critical, and family remains very important to him. After graduating from LCC, Marianopolis, and then McGill, he headed to Trinity College at the University of Dublin to study medicine, and remained in Ireland for a year to do his medical-surgical internship. He notes, “The hardest part for me was being away from my family. I left Montreal in 1997 and I missed that support system I had when I was growing up.”
Distance from family was largely what motivated his return to North America. Before moving on to Dartmouth, John first spent five years at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, first as an internal medicine resident, and then as a geriatric medicine fellow. He describes this experience as second-to-none, not only because he acquired invaluable clinical and professional skills, but it is also is where he met his wife.
John’s tenacious spirit had been encouraged at LCC, where supportive teachers guided him and taught him important life skills. He was involved for three years with the yearbook, serving as editor in grade 11. Managing deadlines, being part of a team, working with mentors, and developing organizational skills proved to be invaluable to him.
“At LCC, not only did I learn never to be afraid of hard work,” he says, “I also understood that there will always be obstacles in my way, that everyone fails, and that I will have to surmount these challenges and use them as learning opportunities. I now realize that having a foundation early on in one’s development is critical to achieving long-term goals.”
February 2020