Dr. Mark Stephens credits aspects of his successful career in medicine and medical education back to his roots in the Wallingford-Swarthmore community.

Stephens graduated from Swarthmore High School in 1983 and was the captain of the soccer team, basketball team, and spring track team. Many of Stephens’s friends were sports captains alongside him.

“After high school, I was a liberal arts major at Penn State, and then did a master’s degree in Exercise Science before going to med school in Cleveland at Case Western,” Stephens said. 

He joined the Navy to help pay for medical school. He did his residency training in family medicine in Bremerton, and then served 27 years in the Navy in San Diego, D.C., Sicily, and North Carolina. 

“[During] the last 10 years of my career in the Navy, I was involved in medical education at the military medical school in Bethesda, Maryland. It’s called the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. It’s a hidden gem,” Stephens said.

At the Uniformed Services University, Stephens won a student-generated award where they voted on the most impactful educator during their time in medical school. Stevens is the only person to win this award twice. 

In 2016, Stephens retired from the Navy and has since been working at Penn State, where he is currently the Associate Dean for medical education at the Penn State College of Medicine. 

“We have a regional campus in University Park, so that’s what I’m doing now. I’m still seeing patients, still doing research, and pretty involved in undergraduate medical education,” Stevens said. 

According to Stephens, Caroline Baker, one of his English teachers, influenced his decision to pursue a liberal arts education as an undergraduate by teaching him the importance of reading and a broad base to his education. 

He described his liberal arts education as “a good foundation for critical thinking and how to solve problems has been very helpful as a physician.”

Stephens noted that graduating from Swarthmore High School in 1983 as part of the last graduating class before the school’s merger with Nether Providence High School was interesting. 

“It was in a period of time when I don’t think either school really wanted to merge,” he said. “Swarthmore would have been fine with the community staying as an independent, small, public high school, and I think Nether Providence would have said the same. The realities, the financial and social realities of the time, were that the merger was going to happen.”

Stephens is grateful for his roots in the Swarthmore community and still owns a house there. He described the community as a great place to live and grow up.

“Swarthmore really felt like the foundation for what was for me, or continues to be, an extraordinary career in medicine and medical education,” he said.