When she's not managing the city's major health issues, Joanne Godley makes sure she gets her schoolwork done.
Godley, a 52-year-old West Philadelphia resident and physician, completed the requirements for a master's degree in bioethics last semester while serving as the acting health commissioner for the city's Department of Public Health.
Godley discovered the challenges of working as a student and government official simultaneously when she had to finish up her honors thesis while working on an assessment of the city's health services for Hurricane Katrina victims last summer.
"I found it extreme because I couldn't focus on it on a consistent, full-time basis," Godley said.
While serving as acting health commissioner for the city, Godley has worked to combat the city's youth obesity problem by working with various city departments to develop programs aimed at encouraging youths to exercise. She recently testified in front of Congress regarding Philadelphia's level of preparedness in the event of a bird flu pandemic.
According to Godley's bioethics thesis adviser and the Chairman of Penn's Department of Medical Ethics Arthur Caplan, she still managed to turn her assignments in on time.
"I was late more than she was," Caplan said. "She was certainly up there on the high end of the busy scale."
While she will be resigning from the post this week, Godley expects to remain an active advocate of public health issues.
"It's given me an opportunity to really think through my position on a lot of policy issues,"she said.
Prior to serving as acting health commissioner, Godley was also the city's medical director when she first enrolled in Penn's Master's of Bioethics program in the fall of 2003.
Godley, who grew up in Detroit, Mich., first came to Philadelphia as a field epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the early 1980s.
She later opened up a private practice, working as a gastroenterologist in West Philadelphia from 1986 to 1997. Godley earned her medical degree from Yale University Medical School in 1977.
Godley's colleagues describe her as open-minded and thoughtful.
"She's not going to impose the medical model on everything," said Suet Lim, a colleague in the public health department. "She wants us to bring what we have to the table."
Another colleague, Michelle Davis, the Deputy Secretary for Pennsylvania's Department of Health, described her as being very committed.
"She's very contemplative and thinks through situations thoroughly, but can think ... very quickly as well," Davis said.
Godley's son, Toussaint, 23, said that his mother's open-mindedness stems from her love of world cultures and traveling.
Godley spent three years as a medical officer overseeing 800 Peace Corps volunteers in central, west and southern Africa. She is also fluent in Spanish and has traveled to England, Egypt and China.
Toussaint described his mother as "an extremely creative person" who experiments with recipes from all around the world.
But when it comes to the family diner, Toussaint prefers his mother's homemade sweet potato pie.
"She tosses everything in there from small little shavings of lemon to Southern Comfort to brown sugar," he said.
For the moment, Godley is finishing out her last week at the city's health department and is looking forward practicing gastroenterology again.
But that doesn't necessarily mean her life will be less busy.
"I'm not sure we've heard the last of Joanne, and I don't think it's a bad thing," Caplan said.
