ALS Learning Series

In this session, Peggy Plews-Ogan, MD, of the Hummingbird Fund, shared the story behind the ALS Turbocharged Living Scale, a powerful framework developed by her late husband. The scale offers a meaningful way for people living with ALS to measure and celebrate quality of life beyond physical function. Whether you are navigating ALS yourself or supporting someone who is, this webinar will offer a fresh perspective and practical insight. 

About the Speaker: Peggy Plews-Ogan, MD

Peggy Plews-Ogan, MD:  is Bernard B. and Annie E. Brodie Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and the Co-Director of the Wisdom and Wellbeing program—a health-system initiative to address stress, burnout and professionalism at UVA, which includes a coaching program for faculty and staff. Peggy’s husband Jim—who was diagnosed with ALS in 2021 and passed away in July 2024 from the disease—was a pediatrician and Emeritus Associate Professor at UVA. After Jim’s diagnosis, Peggy and Jim devoted their lives to advocacy work toward ALS. For 10 years, Peggy led UVA’s primary care, geriatrics, palliative medicine, and hospital medicine divisions. Her therapeutic practice has concentrated on vulnerable groups, starting with migrant farmworkers. She has studied patient safety and quality of care to help physicians operate compassionately and creatively. She founded UVA’s Institute for Appreciative Practice to improve healthcare organizations. Her study focused on patient safety and error prevention. This led to a study on learning from failures and the arena of wisdom—how wisdom is obtained from unpleasant experience and post-traumatic growth. She has several teaching and medical humanism honors and has written many articles and book chapters, as well as three books: Appreciative Practices in Health Care, Choosing Wisdom: Strategies and Inspiration for Growing through Life-Changing Difficulties (with a public television documentary), and Wisdom Leadership: Leading Positive Change in the Academic Health Sciences Center. Dr. Plews-Ogan completed her internal medicine residency at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital after graduating from Harvard Medical School. She and Jim have two grown children, Erin (a medical resident at UVA) and William (a graduate of Columbia Law School who now practices in NYC), along with son-in-law Hal and daughter-in-law Monika, who all advocate to eliminate ALS!