Judy Fruchter Minkove served as a senior writer at Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), where she worked since 2002. In this role, she wrote for and managed two of the health system’s newsletters: Hopkins Brain Wise (Dept. of Psychiatry) and Aequanimitas (for Osler Medical Residency alumni). She also wrote regularly for Dome, JHM’s flagship employee newsletter. In addition, her work has appeared in Hopkins Medicine Magazine (the medical school’s alumni publication). Minkove has won several national writing awards, including the Association of American Medical College (AAMC) Group on Institutional Advancement (GIA) Awards for Excellence and the Robert G. Fenley Writing Award of Distinction, in 2005.

 

A self-described grammar nerd, she also enjoyed her role as a Johns Hopkins copy editor for assorted publications, press releases and Web content. Prior to joining Editorial Services in 2003, Minkove managed publications, events and transplant patient volunteers at the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Transplant Center. 

 

All told, Minkove has more than 40 years of editorial experience, including four years as manager of public relations at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital and 13 years as a medical textbook copy editor for Williams & Wilkins/Waverly Press. She has also published essays in The Baltimore Jewish Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Forward and The New York Jewish Week. 

 

A rabbi’s daughter — raised in a modern Orthodox home in communities across the country — Minkove is probably best known for her family’s close ties to young Elvis Presley, whose family shared a duplex with the Fruchters in Memphis.

 

Outside of work, Minkove relishes reading, swimming, cooking and spending time with family — especially her five grandchildren, two of whom are named after her daughter, Rachel, who died in 2012 from complications of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. At this juncture, Minkove continues to chronicle Rachel’s impactful, albeit way-too-short, life.