Dr. Megan Furnari, M.D., M.S., R ’16 is the Associate Chief Wellness Officer for OHSU and an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Furnari brings a decade of leadership experience in well-being for learners, staff, and faculty in academic healthcare, as well as specialized training in women’s leadership development. She is passionate about systems health and understanding how to create impactful well-being transformation in alignment with broader OHSU goals. Her focus within well-being specifically is on how to build sustainable programs and strategic priorities that incorporate well-being best practices across an organization. She is also currently trying to understand and build her knowledge of and parter with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging goals and leaders. Her formal leadership skill development has primarily been through Stanford University's School of Business Executive Education Programs in Innovative Healthcare Leadership, Women's Leadership, and their Chief Wellness Officer Training.

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.

Dr. Furnari moved to Portland, Oregon 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. 

During her last year of residency, Dr. Furnari founded the Women’s Leadership Development Program in 2016 which is now located in the Office of the Provost and supports MD, PA, and DNP women-identified learners. This program is for women healthcare students to learn leadership skills, empower vision and purpose, and foster community. Thus far the WLDP has been very successful with over 100 graduates. 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. 

After graduating from residency, she joined the OHSU faculty and became a NICU hospitalist. Later she transitioned into nursery focused care of babies, where she currently works today.