Leslie Heinberg '88, B.A. Psychology
Imagine you are a high school senior from Los Alamos, N.M., on a college visit. Fortuitously, your visit coincides with that of President Jimmy Carter, who is delivering an address as part of the University's Distinguished Lecture Series. Pretty cool. But the even bigger "wow" for Leslie Heinberg '88 was also being able to sit in on a small political science seminar where Carter was a guest lecturer. "Meeting a former president was above and beyond all my other college visits," she recalls enthusiastically.
At Trinity, Leslie planned to major in English literature but made a switch after her first year courses in psychology and sociology. Inquisitive by nature, she realized it was character development in novels that she enjoyed most and liked the fact that psychology allowed her to "explore ‘character' from a scientific viewpoint." Veering toward science, however, did not diminish her reliance on the writing skills she gained from English professor Victoria Aarons, the O.R. & Eva Mitchell Distinguished Professor, which she says serve her daily in her scientific writing, grants, and clinical reports. "Thanks to my undergraduate education, a reviewer may not like my idea, but I almost always receive feedback that it was expressed clearly."
After earning a master's and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of South Florida, Leslie completed a clinical internship at the Medical University of South Carolina and a postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She followed that with a clinical and research position at Johns Hopkins and a traditional teaching position at Case Western Reserve before joining the Cleveland Clinic in 2007. Throughout a career pursued at some of the nation's most prestigious medical institutions, Leslie has focused her work on body image, eating disorders, and obesity.
Today at the Cleveland Clinic, Leslie is a Fellow of the Academy of Eating Disorders and the Obesity Society and wears many hats: professor of medicine for the Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, section head for psychology for the Center of Behavioral Health in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, and director of behavioral services for the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute. Her warp-speed day encompasses training fellows, graduate students, and residents in clinical work and research, administering adult and health psychologists throughout the Clinic's system, and maintaining a research program that examines psychosocial predictors of weight loss outcomes. She also spends significant time working with patients suffering from severe clinical obesity by helping them with disordered eating patterns, making lifestyle changes, preparing for bariatric surgery and optimizing postoperative outcomes.
Juggling so many roles can be stressful, but Leslie finds that stress is mitigated by the fact that she is never bored. Thanks to her natural inclination toward empathy, she finds her work incredibly rewarding. "I see patients go from being wheelchair-bound to running a 5K," she explains, "and I'm honored to play a small role in the changes I witness daily."
Dedicated and acutely focused on her field, Leslie spends her spare time serving on committees within her professional societies and being an associate editor for Surgery for Obesity and Related Disorders. She strives relentlessly to shape the scientific knowledge base within bariatric health and to educate others across the country. She credits her curiosity with keeping her fully engaged as the years go on, and she relies on her sense of humor to prevent burnout. Despite her intense focus on work, Leslie notes, "My primary involvement is my amazing family. I spend every free moment with my husband and two teenage sons."
At the top of her game, Leslie looks forward to building the psychology program at the Cleveland Clinic. She foresees behavioral health becoming an essential part of wellness and embedding psychologists within the medical setting as a means to improving outcomes and patient experience. She will continue conducting research, garnering funding, publishing, and "as I move into the latter half of my career, I look forward to mentoring the next generation of psychologists."
"My dream," she says, "is to do all of this and still be home by 5 p.m. each night," adding wistfully, "as if that could be possible."
You can contact Leslie at heinbel@ccf.org
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