M. Patricia George, MD
Associate Professor
Director, Pulmonary Hypertension Program
National Jewish Health
Please share three statements about you – two true, one false.
- I briefly worked as a Peloton instructor before joining National Jewish Health.
- I worked in pulmonary transplant medicine before becoming a pulmonary hypertension pulmonologist.
- I rode my bike in the Race Across America in 2014.
Give us your ‘elevator pitch’ biography.
I would define myself with four words: academic, physician, athlete, and leader. As an academic pulmonologist working in the area of pulmonary hypertension, I truly love what I do. My current research interests at National Jewish Health involve exploring the impact of improving metabolic health in pulmonary hypertension, and I am working to develop clinical and research programs around an evidence-based, evidence-informed holistic approach to helping those with lung disease. As a physician, I enjoy working with people to help them live their best lives possible. As an athlete, I truly enjoy riding my bike long distances (I bikepacked the Colorado Trail in 2024) and using it as a platform to inspire others to define and go after their own epic dreams. And as a leader, I bring teams together to tackle complex problems.
This team-centered approach permeates our work in pulmonary hypertension at National Jewish Health as well as my extracurricular work over the past 12 years with Team PHenomenal Hope, a nonprofit I co-founded in 2012 to help those living with pulmonary hypertension.
What would you tell yourself as an Early Career Professional?
Before you get into clinical work, devote 15 minutes each morning to reading or writing: whether it’s a manuscript, or an article, or something that will help you get close to your long-term goals. If you wait for the block of time to do it all, it tends to get pushed off to a later date. Often the 15 minutes will turn into 30 or 60, but if not, at least you’ve put in a bit of time moving the needle on your intermediate or longer-term goals. Think about relentless forward progress every day.
Oh, and take care of yourself: Get regular sleep, stay hydrated, move your body, eat nutritious food, and enjoy those around you.
If you weren’t in medicine, and were in a different industry altogether, what would you be?
I’d work in the sports/fitness industry as a coach and athlete.
What is your favorite way to spend a day off?
Riding my bike.
What areas of medicine are you most excited to see develop?
I’m so excited about the progress we are making in pulmonary vascular disease. In the past 30 years we have gone from having one medication to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension (Flolan was approved in 1995), with a 34% three-year survival to an armamentarium of pulmonary vasodilator medications that we use with more assertive combination strategies, extending medial survival beyond five years, and now newer agents that target pulmonary vascular remodeling.
In addition, we are also getting into more descriptive phenotyping in other forms of pulmonary hypertension (my two main interest areas: HFpEF and group three pulmonary hypertension), which I believe will allow us to be able to make therapeutic advances in those areas, as well.
What is one advancement in your field you’d like to see in your career?
I think everyone in our field would love for there to be a cure for pulmonary hypertension, which connotes treating a disease and no longer needing to take medications for that disease. But realistically in the next 20 years, I would love to see us expand survival in those of have pulmonary hypertension and make it a disease people "live with" rather than "die from," if that makes sense. And with the advancements we are seeing in our field, I think this is possible.
Which statement (in question #1) was false?
I was never a Peloton instructor, although I put out an April Fool’s rumor stating I was leaving medicine to become a Peloton instructor! It went viral and it was my best April Fool’s post ever.
