A passion for wellness, Dr. Megan Furnari is fascinated by the concept of health and what it means to be a healer. In her undergraduate studies at Brown University, she did her senior thesis on healing outside of the western medical paradigm to better understand traditional healing systems. She went on to do a master's degree in mind-body medicine and physiology at Georgetown University to further her knowledge of the evidence-based research examining the impact of relaxation techniques on the stress response and the brain. In 2009, she was accepted to the University of Massachusetts Medical School where she taught an integrative medicine elective, began a student facilitated multi-modality relaxation class for adult cancer patients, and completed the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction training at the Center for Mindfulness at UMASS

After being in New England for most of her life, Megan moved to Portland and completed her residency at OHSU in pediatrics in June 2016. While a resident, she started the Well Resident Program, a nourishment-based wellness curriculum taught by local Portland experts during resident daytime lectures to promote wellbeing focusing on yoga, nutrition, meditation, and non-verbal communication. This curriculum was shared with Pediatrics, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and OBGYN residents across a two-year time span and supported by OHSU. After graduating from residency, she became a NICU hospitalist at OHSU and Peacehealth Vancouver.

Megan’s latest creation, with the help of women medical students, is the Women’s Leadership Development Program in the OHSU School of Medicine. This is a co-created program for women medical students to learn leadership skills, empower vision and purpose, and foster community. Thus far the WLDP has been very successful including 60 women OHSU medical students across all 4 class years. WLDP has won awards at the AMWA annual conference and AMA student leadership conference, had multiple articles written, and received grants to support their work from the OHSU School of Medicine, Bacon Endowment, the Medical Society of Metropolitan Portland, and the Oregon Medical Association. Megan is grateful and appreciative for the doctors, administrators, and organizations who have believed in her vision and made her projects a shared reality.

When Megan isn’t working on WLDP or on a 24hr shift in the NICU, she loves time with her friends, delicious dinner parties, long trail runs, growing gardens, and thinking about her next creative project.