Bjorkheim honored with Health Leadership Award

His hours are punishing. Sleep is in short supply. His working days vary between diagnostic testing work at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at UW in Seattle, medical research as a junior researcher under Dr. Michael Mulligan, lung transplant director at the UW Medical Center, peer group meetings, volunteer work on various boards including UW’s transplant board, and more. With all that, one would think Lucas Bjorkheim is sipping coffee, sleep-deprived and running on fumes. In talking to him, however, one gets the sense that his energy is indeed boundless.

“I was just talking to some people at the UW Medical Center yesterday, I’ve been fortunate to be heavily involved in a lot of things,” said Bjorkheim, who earned his undergraduate degree at UW Tacoma in biomedical studies. Those things he mentions read like a laundry list of cutting-edge medical research. If that weren’t enough to keep him busy, he’s also recently been honored with the 2024 Public Health Leadership Award from the Washington State Public Health Association. 

According to the WSPHA, the award was given to him for “efforts on the frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic and involvement with the UW Department of Surgery, UW Transplant Advisory Council, American Society of Transplantation, demonstrating leadership, research, and advocacy to improve health outcomes across the state.” Bjorkheim received the award at the WSPHA’s conference in Yakima in October.

He's in good company. Other recipients of the WSPHA Leadership Award include Michelle Davis, executive director of the Washington State Board of Health, Dr. Michele Andrasik, Director of Social & Behavioral Sciences and Community Engagement at the Fred Hutchison Cancer Center, and Dr. Scott Lindquist Acting Chief Science Officer/State Epidemiologist for Communicable Diseases Washington State Department of Health. 

During the COVID-19 outbreak, Bjorkheim worked on the frontline of testing. “My team did over three million tests. I showed up every day at the lab with an N-95 strapped to my face, until it turned purple. It was quite a time,” he said.   

But his research is what drives him. Bjorkheim’s current research under Dr. Mulligan surrounding lung transplant rejection is looking for answers as to how patients of transplant can better accept their new organs. “I spend a lot of time looking at data, creating graphs that help us understand trends in relation to proteins, cytokines, and inflammatory products of transplantation. It’s really going to impact public health in general and it already is. It’s a big project.” Bjorkheim also studied and did research under Dr. Sharon Laing, associate professor in the School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership at UW Tacoma, working with a set of research that was in partnership with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. He received the UW 25-Year Population Health Initiative Recognition Award for that work.

“The award just feels like an accumulation of all the research and work I’ve done,” Bjorkheim said. “I’ve really enjoyed all the work, but it’s not over yet.” He now spends all of his time on the Seattle campus with Mulligan and his team. “Dr. Mulligan is an incredible mentor. He’s a surgeon scientist,” he said. “I really want to sort of follow in those footsteps. He inspires me and it’s just an incentive to work harder. It’s nice to have five minutes of recognition, but it’s honestly about getting into the work, dealing with people’s lives and helping them. What matters is the patient on the table.” 

Dr. Michelle Montgomery, a bioethicist and assistant director of the office of undergraduate education, taught Bjorkheim in her qualitative methodology class. “We came through the pandemic, and we didn’t really come through with a lot of grace and humility, and so hearing the grace and the humility that come from Lucas, it’s a real plus,” she said.   

“I really ask students to understand the context of having a voice through justice. It’s seeing and interacting with people. Regardless of whether your research is doing bi-directional interviews or large data sets, there are human feelings invested in that data.” Montgomery said that Bjorkheim exemplified those characteristics. 

Bjorkheim’s work is all headed toward earning an M.D. and becoming a surgeon, but he’s also considering a Master of Public Health or a Ph.D. “I’m interested in working as a surgeon, but the research component still interests me. Either way, I have a lot more school left.” 

For now, Bjorkheim says every day is a chance to pursue his career goals, but also do work that he loves. “It’s incredible and inspiring and I’ve received so much support,” Bjorkheim said. “I’m just honored to be here.”