Category

Share This

“That’s Why We’re Here”

The Czarnecki Family’s Jefferson Journey—For the Love of Family, Patients, and Medicine

In 2025, Jefferson’s Class of 1965 will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The occasion will highlight this singular class’s distinction as the first in Jefferson’s storied history to include women. Alumna Nancy Czarnecki, MD ’65, was the first woman to matriculate to—and graduate from—the medical college.

“Back in the early ’60s, some of the major universities in the Philadelphia area did not accept women,” Nancy says.

What a difference six decades make.

According to a 2023 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges, in 2019, for the first time, women comprised the majority of medical school applicants, matriculants/first-time enrollees, and total enrollees.  

Nancy’s path to medical school was influenced by a desire to do more. During her college years as a med tech at Temple University, her beloved grandfather developed severe pain.  She felt helpless. She wanted more. When her mother read that Jefferson, known for its clinical skills and doctor/patient relationships, was accepting women for the first time, she jumped at the chance to apply. “I thought, I have to learn to do more for him,” she says.  

Nancy’s former Temple classmate, a Jefferson first-year medical student, invited her to visit him at the anatomy building. “There were all these men in white jackets, students hovered over their cadavers,” she recounts. “It became an uproar. There was a hand on my shoulder, and I turned around. Dr. Michaels, a prosector in anatomy, said, ‘Lady, do you know you’re causing pandemonium in here?’ But he had a twinkle in his eye, and somehow, I knew I was going to love this place.”

Nancy and seven other women joined Jefferson in 1961. “We bonded, and we’re still in touch,” she says. “We would talk about classes, our backgrounds, and stuck together as women normally do. We had a lot of fun and were accepted well by most of the faculty and the guys in the class. Most came from co-ed schools, so it was no big deal. I thought we would get a lot more resistance from the professors, but outside of little light jokes, it was a great experience.”

Following medical school, Nancy went right into family practice. “At the time, you could go into family practice without residency,” she shares. “I was board certified, and you were grandfathered in if you passed the exams, which I did.”

Nancy and her husband, whom met while in college, opened a family practice in the Port Richmond area of Philadelphia that thrived for more than 20 years. After leaving private practice, she joined the insurance industry in the role of medical director. “I saw how medicine was practiced in other states and used my knowledge of family practice to help finetune their programs,” she says.

Nancy’s Jefferson bond is ironclad. Selected as the first woman president of the Jefferson Medical College Alumni Association, she also served on the Jefferson University Board of Trustees as an alumni trustee.” Since her fifth-year reunion, Nancy has also served as reunion chair, recently collaborating on the creation of the Class of 1965 Scholarship Fund for deserving Jefferson medical students. “I’ve always loved Jefferson,” she says.

She never forgot the women who followed in her footsteps, launching two programs at Jefferson geared to female students to provide information about specific medical specialties and residency programs. “It was helpful, because at the time, there weren’t that many women at Jefferson,” she says. “You didn’t see women department heads and rarely saw a female surgical resident.”

Not only did she lead the charge for women, Nancy’s Jefferson legacy spans three generations. “How could I not go to a place that was so good to my mom and trained her so wonderfully?” says Nancy’s son Joseph Czarnecki, MD ’95. “Aside from Jefferson being a wonderful medical school, being able to go to a place where my mom had somewhat of a historic impact was important to me. I had the option to go to several other medical schools, but I felt the training would be better at Jefferson—more hands-on, and clinically oriented. The bar was set so high that no one else came close to meeting that for me. I wanted to be part of that legacy.

Joseph’s love of surgery began early in life. “When I was in college and had a couple of orthopedic surgeries, that really crystallized that I was very interested in going into orthopedics,” he shares. “Jefferson’s legacy dating back to the days of Samuel Gross is palpable when you’re there. It’s one of the important places for surgery and how surgery came to be in the United States. If you learn sound surgical principles in a great medical school like Jefferson, you can carry those on and can ever be evolving.

Jefferson lived up to its reputation as a hands-on medical school and gave me the ability to begin to hone my craft as a surgeon.”

Coming from an immigrant family that prioritized education, patriotism, and a love for his country, Joseph entered the health profession scholarship program with the U.S. Air Force, serving for four years as a general medical officer on active duty at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas. “It was incredibly important to be able to give back to my country in a way that was going to work well for me and my skill set as an evolving orthopedic surgeon,” he says. Following his service, he joined the Harvard Combined Orthopedic Residency program, staying for four years, followed by a year at the Mass General/Harvard sports medicine and shoulder surgery fellowship. Today, he practices orthopedic surgery in Massachusetts. 

Nancy’s son John Czarneck had an internship in physical therapy at Jefferson and then worked in the department for two years.

“The opportunities that my family had at Jefferson were gigantic,” says Nancy’s grandson, John’s son and namesake, and Joseph’s nephew and godson John Czarnecki, who attended the Penn State Jefferson Combined BSMD program and  just completed his first year as a member of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College Class of 2027. “It’s very cool to be the third generation of my family to attend.”

“When John ended up deciding that he wanted to go to med school, we had multiple conversations and I highly encouraged him to go,” shares Joseph. “I couldn’t see a place that would fit him better than Jefferson. It had been really good for my mom and me, and I knew it would be a good place for him.”

“Family is very important to me,” John says. “We are very close. Being able to have this connection and to talk about something that we share in terms of what we do professionally has strengthened my relationship with my grandmother.”

Nancy was able to join John at his White Coat Ceremony, a source of immense pride and gratitude for both. “She was so happy to see the increased diversity within Jefferson, especially as my class is more women than men,” he says. “It’s something she’s proud to be a part of in terms of her legacy.”

Jefferson’s pioneering JeffMD curriculum is invaluable to John. “What makes it extra special is its systems-based approach,” he shares. “With JeffMD, we have the opportunity to go block by block and synthesize a lot of different information together. That’s an ultimate strength.” John also raves about the liaison program, which bridges the gap between faculty and students and addresses concerns about how classes are taught and materials delivered. “There are always concrete results that come out of the meetings, and compromise is reached quite often,” he notes.

 Even in his first year, John had the opportunity to participate in exciting research opportunities within orthopedics, plastic surgery, and sports medicine. “The best advice I’ve gotten from both my grandmother and my uncle is to keep your mind open,” John shares. “As a Jefferson student, your education shapes what you find interesting. It’s very important that you’re truly passionate and acknowledge every possibility of what you can do in the future.”

“A lot of people ask what medical school is like and what Jefferson is like,” he continues. “The big difference between the way that people talk about other spots and Jefferson, especially within the medical student community, is that the students here are extremely happy and passionate about what they do. I think that’s something that may get lost along the way of accreditation, ranking, and prestige. It elevates the entire school and makes Jefferson a special place.”

“We must continue to build our future for our patients,” says Nancy. “Jefferson historian D. Frederick Wagner’s book, ‘Heritage and Traditions,’ includes a quote from Cicero: ‘In nothing do men more nearly approach the gods than in giving health to men.’ And that’s why we’re here.”