My Carolina Experience: Karen Greenberg
January 21, 2015 | Women's Lacrosse
My Carolina Experience: Karen Greenberg
By Zoya Johnson, GoHeels.com
People are a big part of what makes the University of North Carolina and Chapel Hill the special place it is. So, every now and then, when a story like Karen Greenberg's is told, we completely understand why someone chooses to be a Tar Heel.
“My recruiting experience was actually pretty cool because I graduated from high school in 1995 when universities were adding women's sports to fulfill Title IX requirements,” says Greenberg. “My recruiting opportunities were better than they might otherwise have been because all of a sudden schools around the country needed to fill their newly-founded lacrosse programs with players.
“Because this was back in the day before we had a varsity team (at UNC) we (lacrosse recruits) stayed on recruiting trips with the field hockey and soccer players and they introduced us to what athletic life was like at Carolina.
“It meant the world to us that these women from other teams were willing to take all of these 17- and 18-year-olds around campus. You saw their spirit and love for Carolina and you could just feel the camaraderie amongst all the athletes. I went on recruiting trips to Duke, Vanderbilt and Rutgers but it was a no brainer once I visited Carolina.”
As a part of the inaugural team in 1996, Greenberg's freshman class laid the foundation for the fledgling lacrosse program.
“It was unique and exciting to be part of a Division I program during a time when it was new because there were no established traditions,” she says. ”(UNC head coach) Jenny Levy and the coaching staff at the time were trying to formulate what the traditions were going to be and she started with the notion that what we lacked in experience we would make up for in fitness.”
That foundation turned out to be a solid one for the program to stand on. The team made it to the semifinals of the NCAA tournament in the second and third years of its existence and has remained a consistent national contender since, winning a national championship just two years ago.
Off the field, Greenberg was also focused on getting the most out of her Carolina education. The biology major and chemistry minor graduated from Carolina Phi Beta Kappa, got into the medical school of her choice at Rowan University's School of Osteopathic Medicine, and then graduated first in her class.
Greenberg went on to become the chief intern in her program and then the chief resident. In her sixth year as an emergency medicine attending physician she has been awarded a fellowship with the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians and is one of the youngest physicians in the College to be granted this status.
Recently, she published her first original research piece in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine.
“I talk about us having the first Neurologic Emergency Department in the country at Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton, N.J. and the work we are doing with acute stroke patients. It has led to an online interview with medical research.com and acceptance for presentation of a paper at The International Stroke Conference in February.
“The paper that I wrote is about an intravenous medication that you can give to stroke patients as long as they get to you within three to four hours of their symptoms. The faster that you can give them this drug the better their outcome because for every minute that goes by two million of your brain cells die.
“Across the country the standard is that you need to consult a neurologist to administer the drug,” explains Greenberg. “That creates big delays and requires time these patients don't have, so what we did in our neurologic emergency room was give the ER doctors the power to administer the drug if the case was straight forward. By doing that we were able to get our times to treat a stroke patient down to 35 minutes.
“Our ER became ground breaking on three accounts; we're the first neurology ER in the country, we showed that ER doctors can give the drugs themselves safely, and finally, we've demonstrated that our outcomes were better. More patients went home and patients had less long term disability.”
With all Greenberg's accomplishments post-graduation it is safe to say she is a Tar Heel the University is very proud to call its own. Amidst all her medical accomplishments you might also be impressed to find that she has found time to give back to her community. Her passion for outreach is another thing Greenberg developed while at Carolina.
“I was very involved in the outreach program with coach John Lotz. He was a very good mentor for me. We would go read books at the local elementary school and cook at the Ronald McDonald house. Even back then I always had something inside me that wanted to give back to others.”
Today, when she is not saving lives in the emergency room, Greenberg is giving back by volunteering as an assistant lacrosse coach at Shawnee High School in Medford, N.J.
“It gives you a totally different perspective. You see the other side of life and realize you're not just a coach, you're a mentor, a psychiatrist, a friend, and in my case a doctor,” Greenberg says. “I really couldn't believe all the different hats that you had to wear until I started coaching, but when I'm helping out with the team my mind isn't anywhere else. Coaching takes my mind off of everything but the kids and for three hours a day it gives me a chance to mentor and mold future athletes.”
Greenberg's life as a Tar Heel women's lacrosse player and emergency room physician has played out as a series of firsts. Given the dedicated approach to her career it wouldn't be surprising if there were more creative, even first-time endeavors in Greenberg's future.