1. [JOHN K. SPRINGER ‘53 PUBLIC POLICY INTERN PROFILE]
Catherine Meyer ‘14 (Weston, MA) is an economics
major and health policy minor pursuing a career in both
clinical medicine and health policy. She is a walk-on
member of the Varsity Cross Country and Track teams,
treasurer of the Nathan Smith Pre-health Society,
Dartmouth Athletic Department Peer Mentor, and intern
with the Patient Support Corps at the Center for
Informed Choice at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical
Center. She attended the Noble and Greenough School in
Dedham, MA where she was a member of the varsity
soccer and varsity cross country teams, an editor of the
school newspaper, a peer mentor, and president of the
community service board. Outside of school, she worked
with the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program in their hospital and shelter based clinics
and on their mobile outreach van. She was a National AP scholar and National Merit
commended student.
Catherine was funded in honor of the late John K. Springer ’53 who served on the Rockefeller
Center Board of Visitors for a summer 2012 internship.
Executive Summary from Catherine’s final report:
The Center for Informed Choice (CIC) at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) and the
Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy (TDI) strives to advance patient informed choice and
shared decision making in healthcare decisions and delivery by improving technology,
increasing its utilization, increasing collaboration among physicians and patients, and working
with policy leaders on the local, state, and national level. The
“As a John Springer ’53 intern,
goals of CIC’s Patient Support Corps, a pilot program funded
I had the financial resources by the Geisel School of Medicine, are to increase and improve
to pursue this unpaid patient and physician utilization of shared decision making
internship that provided me practices through the education of both undergraduates and
with invaluable experience, medical students in facilitating shared decision making
practices, and to integrate and increase shared decision
knowledge, and contacts.”

2. making into medical practices on a state and eventually national level as a means of improving
healthcare and its delivery.
As an intern, I worked directly with both the program’s patients and physicians by facilitating
the shared decision making process, coaching patients through the question generation
process, taking notes on their questions, attending their appointments, and providing a record
of patient questions and physician answers for review by both the patients and physicians. I
also helped develop, plan for, and lead a training session for new Patient Support Corps interns,
work on the policies and procedures manual, and help out and attend an international
conference on shared decision-making (The Summer Institute for Informed Patient Choice),
which was hosted by The Dartmouth Institute in July. My internship gave me the opportunity to
deepen my understanding of shared decision-making and further sparked my interest in health
policy. My internship provided me with the knowledge, experience, and networking that is
currently allowing me to work with another health clinic in Hanover to develop a shared
decision making program of their own. I plan to continue to work with the Patient Support
Corps in the upcoming terms (but in a smaller capacity) in order to help them maintain and
grow their program.
Catherine Meyer ’14 with her colleagues at the Center for Shared Decision Making
during her summer 2012 internship.