Veterans Health Administration
Dr. Eloise Harman - One of VA's Top Doctors.
VA has an exceptionally talented team of outstanding employees. We would like you to meet them, starting with our dedicated staff of doctors. We are introducing our eminent doctors in a continuing feature: VA’s Top Doctors.
Dr. Eloise Harman never knew her father but his legacy serves as her motivation and inspiration.
“My father was a doctor who died when I was an infant. I always heard stories about how he went the extra mile for his patients. My mother was a teacher and did the same for her students. She was also very generous in helping people in need. I try to follow in their footsteps.”
Going the extra mile for her Veteran patients is just one of the reasons she was selected as the 2016 recipient of the “Richard R. Streiff Award for Clinical Excellence” at the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System.
Harman was selected as this year’s Streiff Award recipient for her decades-long track record of excellence as a clinician, an educator, and for her community service and volunteerism. She has been recognized locally, regionally, and nationally as an outstanding clinician and is appreciated at her medical center as a model of patient advocacy and clinical expertise to the medical staff.
“I love to work with the Veterans and to hear their stories.
A native of Hanover, Pa., she graduated from medical school at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, served her internal medicine residency there and also a pulmonary fellowship at New York Hospital Cornell. In addition to her specialties in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine and critical care medicine, she also has an interest in Medical Ethics and chairs the ethics consultation committee.
Harman has two daughters and a two-year-old grandson she visits in Chicago “as often as possible.”
Annual Volunteer Trip to Haiti
A professor emeritus at the University of Florida, Harman has published 63 peer reviewed articles in the scientific literature, seven book chapters and 42 abstract presentations. She has accumulated numerous honors, distinctions, and accolades over her career, including no fewer than 13 clinical teaching awards. She has also received seven different professional and community service awards.
Dr. Harman and grandson
One example of her commitment to care is her annual trip to Haiti to provide medical care, a trip she has made with medical students and doctors for 20 years.
Harman also volunteers at Camp Boggy Creek for seriously ill children and does other volunteer work including service projects with her place of worship such as feeding the homeless.
First to Volunteer to Work Overnight
Her award states: “Dr. Harman has done an outstanding job as Medical Intensive Care Unit Director. She is often on call in the MICU, and is well known to rarely leave the unit out of dedication to the patients, residents, and nurses in the unit who benefit from her involvement and close oversight of the unit. When the facility needed physician volunteers to work in-house overnight for a pilot project to improve ICU safety and quality, Dr. Harman was one of the first to volunteer.”
Harman loves to cook and bake and follows a vegan diet most of the time.
About her job, she says, “I love to work with the Veterans and to hear their stories. I was honored to receive the award named for Dr. Streiff, a role model for his dedication to Veterans and for providing patient centered care.”
The reason her Veteran patients are always happy to see her is summed up in her award: “Dr. Harman is a tireless advocate for her patients and she consistently goes the extra mile to make sure her patients receive the care they need. She is often complimented by patients and families for going above and beyond the call of duty.
“Dr. Harman has often seen outpatients at any time necessary, making space in her own administrative office for patient visits outside of regularly scheduled clinic hours. In the realm of patient care, Dr. Harman is often the "go to" person to help make difficult or challenging diagnoses and is personally sought out by physicians seeking help.”
