Sarah Johansen, MD, MED ’90 RES '93
Emergency Staff Physician and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, retired
Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Sarah Garlan Johansen, MD, MED ’90 RES ’93 is a physician-educator and institutional leader who has devoted four decades of service to the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Dartmouth Health, and to emergency medicine regionally and nationally.
Johansen served as an emergency staff physician at Dartmouth Health’s Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and as medical director and staff physician at New London Hospital while also serving as assistant professor of emergency medicine and community and family medicine at Geisel.
Johansen lives by the Judeo-Christian concept of “Imago Dei,” a Latin phrase translating to “image of God,” meaning every person is created in the divine likeness of God, bestowing worth, purpose, and value to every human being. She brings an open heart and skillful care to every patient she has treated and a joyful depth to each student mentoring relationship, cultivating their opportunity and agency to build community as they grow.
Johansen held numerous leadership positions, offering exceptional guidance and influence to improve curriculum and emphasizing the importance of professionalism, humanism, ethics, physician resilience, and reflective practice in medical education. As chair of the Geisel Medical Education Committee from 2013 to 2017 and a leader of the Curriculum Redesign Task Force and Longitudinal Curriculum Committee, she helped guide critical reforms that strengthened the continuity, coherence, and humanistic foundation of the medical school curriculum. She also contributed to emergency education and policy through her early leadership roles in Upper Valley EMS, Wilderness Response, and later in New Hampshire and national emergency medicine policy and practice with the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), with three terms as New Hampshire president and 17 years as NH-ACEP councilor. Her national academic leadership further included service on the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Task Force on Physician Manpower and the AAMC Organization of Student Representatives Board, contributing to workforce and training policy during a pivotal era in U.S. medical education. Serving as chair of the Office of Community Education and Research–Community Preceptor Board, Johansen cultivated partnerships that expanded high-quality clinical learning environments for Geisel students throughout New Hampshire and Vermont.
For more than 30 years, Johansen served as Geisel On Doctoring faculty, a small-group facilitator, clinical preceptor, OSCE evaluator, coach, and faculty adviser to medical students across all four years, as well as students pursuing dual-degree programs. She mentored hundreds of learners through clinical transitions, career decisions, professionalism challenges, and personal adversity, leaving a lasting impact on generations of physicians. As a model for compassion in medicine, Johansen served as a faculty adviser for Geisel’s chapter of Physicians for Human Rights, and together they founded a nationally recognized symposium series addressing poverty, violence, health rights of women and children, gender equity, and other critical social and health concerns. Over time, the series expanded to address incarceration, planetary health, and migrant and refugee health, helping establish Geisel as a national leader in health equity advocacy. These efforts earned both chapter and national leadership awards and inspired students who went on to prominent advocacy roles. Alongside her students and colleagues, Johansen created and guided the student-run Upper Valley Human Rights Clinic.
Among her many prestigious awards celebrating her commitment to social justice and health equity, Johansen earned the Arnold P. Gold Lifetime Achievement Award for Humanism in Medicine and the Martin Luther King Social Justice Award. She also received six Gold Humanism in Medicine Mentor Awards. Her impact as a teacher and mentor was further recognized through multiple Excellence in Education awards.
Johansen generously offered warm hospitality to students, families, and faculty members, including hosting a graduation party in her home every year. Her service to the Geisel community also extended through alumni leadership. As president of the Geisel Alumni Association from 2014 to 2017 and a longtime Alumni Council member, she strengthened alumni-student engagement, expanded mentoring and specialty networks, and chaired numerous scholarship, fellowship, and alumni recognition efforts. She worked closely with fellow alumni Joe O'Donnell and Dan Lucey to create and develop the living Alumni Wisdom Book for graduating students, and the white coat Alumni Wisdom Book for new students, resources that have benefited years of Geisel students and graduates.
“Success has meant using the gifts I have been given to cultivate community one person at a time through meaningful relationships with my students, colleagues, and patients over the years,” she says.
We are now honored to recognize Johansen’s dedication to fostering those relationships. Her career committed to improving medical education, clinical excellence, and national health policy while advancing humanism, health equity, alumni engagement, and community service makes her well deserving of the 2026 Outstanding Service Award.
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