The School of Medicine's 1998-99 Teaching Awards

Full-time faculty members in the tenure and clinician-educator tracks are eligible for these awards. Nominations are solicited from the faculty, housestaff and students. Dossiers are reviewed by the Faculty Teaching Awards Committee which determines the recipients.
 

 The Leonard Berwick Memorial Teaching Award, established in 1980-81 by the Berwick family and the Department of Pathology, recognizes a member of the medical faculty who in his or her teaching most effectively fuses basic science and clinical medicine. It goes to two distinguished faculty members this year, the second of them honored posthumously:

Leslie A. Litzky, M.D., is an assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine who served as director for the former Pathology 200 course from 1994-1998 while simultaneously acting as the pathology coordinator during the development of Curriculum 2000. Her lectures and laboratory sessions cover a wide range of topics within pulmonary pathology. She has considerable expertise regarding the surgical and medical management of lung disease and her lectures are informed by an awareness of the clinical issues and implications surrounding pathologic diagnoses. Her sessions not only cover basic pathologic concepts, but are also clinically important and useful exercises. Students praise her direct and outgoing personality and her unusual ability to make difficult concepts clear. She is a highly committed and accomplished educator, who is able to communicate an almost infectious zeal for her work-and a role model in her approach to undergraduate medical education.

   Kevin E. Salhany, M.D. (9/30/57-10/15/98) was a 1978 graduate of Tennessee's Southern Missionary College who received his M.D. at Loma Linda University in California. After residencies and fellowships at Vanderbilt University, he joined Penn Med in 1991 as an assistant professor. As a member of the surgical pathology and hematopathology services and of the Penn Cancer Center, he published widely and served as a consultant to regional pathologists, hematologists and oncologists outside Penn. Within the University he worked with the hematology-oncology group and also with individuals in surgery, thoracic surgery and otorhinolaryngology in the evaluation of lymphoid proliferations in various organ systems. His personal research interests included studies of cutaneous and other lymphomas, focusing on T-cell proliferations. "In his strong Tennessee accent," a close friend and colleague recalls, "he would methodically assess a case and walk his students and residents through its complexities to an understanding of the diagnosis. He was always available for a consult with a colleague and he was dedicated to the service of his patients. He had a gentlemanly sense of fairness and honesty that made him very special. Kevin took his role as teacher to heart, and is remembered by the medical students for his excellent teaching along with his responsiveness to their needs, particularly during the recent integration of pathology with the Curriculum 2000 initiative. His students, residents and fellows, and colleagues remember and honor him as a remarkable physician, teacher, mentor, and friend. We will never forget him."
   1999 Blockley-Osler Award: Created in 1987 by the Blockley Section of the Philadelphia College of Physicians, it is presented annually to a member of the faculty at an affiliated hospital for excellence in teaching modern clinical medicine in the bedside tradition of William Osler. This year it is given to Louis M. Bell, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics in infectious diseases and emergency medicine at CHOP. An attending physician at CHOP since completing a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases there in 1986, Dr. Bell considers medical education to be one of the most important missions of academic medicine.
 

 The Robert Dunning Dripps Memorial Award, established in 1983 by the Department of Anesthesia, recognizes a faculty member who exemplifies excellence in the education of residents and fellows in the areas of clinical care, research, teaching and/or administration. This year it is presented to Alan J. Wein, M.D., professor and chair of urology at HUP.

Dr. Wein holds a Princeton A.B., cum laude, in biology. He took his M.D. from Penn, and completed his surgery, basic science research and urology training here before serving as a major in the U.S. Army in 1972-74. He returned to Penn as an assistant professor and moved through the ranks to full professor, chair of urology and chief of urology at HUP. His clinical expertise is primarily in urologic cancer, and he has long been recognized as one whose "extraordinary genius, vision, tenacity, compassion and entrepreneurial spirit restore[s] hope and normalcy to children and adults with urologic abnormalities and dysfunction," as one of his many awards put it.

His basic science contributions have been primarily in the physiology and pharmacology of the lower urinary tract, in which field his laboratory has been responsible for many important contributions, including much of the original work on the autonomic receptor content of the lower urinary tract and the implications of this for drug therapy of voiding dysfunction. He is responsible for one of the most widely used classification systems for voiding dysfunction. He was one of the two original urologists elected to serve on the NIH-appointed national Kidney and Urologic Diseases Advisory Board and was the Urology representative on the Urology/Gastroenterology panel of the FDA from 1987 to 1990. In 1998 he co-chaired the World Health Organization-sponsored First International Consultation on Incontinence.

Since 1974, Dr. Wein's research team has been responsible for achieving over $9 million in extramural funding for the Division of Urology. He was the principle investigator for Penn's NIH-sponsored Interstitial Cystitis Database project and served as the Chairman of the NIH Steering Committee for that project. He is the principle investigator for Penn's Interstitial Cystitis Clinical Trials Group project. He recently finished a six-year term with the Residency Review Committee for Urology of the ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education); he chaired the group in 1994-1996.

   The Dean's Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Training, established in 1992-93, goes this year to Patrick J. Loll, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department of pharmacology. Dr. Loll received an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the Catholic University of America, and holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He performed post-doctoral research with Michael Garavito at the University of Chicago, and joined the Penn faculty in 1995. Awards Dr. Loll has received include a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund Post-doctoral Fellowship, the Bayer Young Researchers' International Aspirin Award, and the Michael S. Brown Junior Research Award.
 

 The Dean's Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching at an Affiliated Hospital was established in 1987 to honor commitment to medical education and excellence in clinical teaching by recognizing outstanding faculty members from affiliated hospitals. Two distinguished faculty members were chosen this year:

Laura F. McNicholas, M.D., Ph.D., is assistant professor of psychology and associate director of the fellowship program in the Penn/VA Center on Studies of Addiction. She joined the faculty in 1992 after completing her psychiatry residency at Penn, as well as a fellowship in clinical research in substance abuse. She became director of education for the Penn/VA Center on Studies of Addiction and became co-Director of Psychiatry 105, now the Substance Abuse section of Brain and Behavior in Module 2. She is also active in teaching in other aspects of Brain and Behavior, as well as Psychiatry 200 and the Psychiatry Residency Program. As associate director of the Fellowship Program in the Penn/VA Center on Studies of Addiction, she is in charge of recruiting new fellows and the management of the fellowship program. Her research interests include new pharmacotherapeutic approaches to the treatment of opioid dependence and the treatment of benzodiazepine dependence.

   James M. Steven, M.D., is associate professor of anesthesia. After graduation from Columbia College and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Dr. Steven came to Philadelphia in 1981 for his pediatric residency at CHOP. There he developed an interest in critical care and enrolled in the Anesthesia residency at HUP. He returned to CHOP in 1986 to complete fellowships in pediatric anesthesiology, pediatric critical care medicine and pediatric cardiac anesthesiology. Since 1987, when he joined the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at CHOP as well as the faculty of PennMed, he has participated in the education of medical students, graduate medical trainees and medical faculty, as well as nurses and other related professionals. Dr. Steven has said of teaching, "Perhaps the greatest fulfillment, resides in the knowledge that teaching future clinicians will influence the care of far more patients than we might ever treat ourselves; ....training prospective teachers and scientists may truly exert an impact on multitudes."
   The Dean's Award for Excellence in Basic Science Teaching was established in 1987, and honors exemplary teaching and commitment to medical education specifically in the basic sciences. David F. Dinges, Ph.D., professor of psychology in psychiatry, is the recipient of this year's award. He is chief of the division of sleep and chronobiology, and director of the Unit for Experimental Psychiatry, in the Department of Psychiatry at Penn's School of Medicine, and a member of the Graduate Group in Psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Dinges came to PennMed as a postdoctoral fellow in 1977 to work in the laboratory of Dr. Martin T. Orne, now emeritus professor of psychiatry. He has been a member of the faculty since 1980. He lectures annually to the medical students, and was cited for excellence in teaching by the class of 1999. He also teaches a popular annual course on Sleep and Chronobiology in the Biological Basis of Behavior Program, and has trained over 300 undergraduates, graduate students, medical students and post-doctoral fellows in his laboratory.
 

 The Special Dean's Award for Excellence, established during the 1989-90 academic year, honors special achievements by Penn faculty members, particularly in the development of new and innovative educational programs. The Vice Dean for Education, in consultation with the Teaching Awards Selection Committee, identifies faculty members who have made unique contributions to medical education at Penn during the previous year. Two distinguished faculty members are being honored this year:

Stephen Ludwig, M.D., is professor and associate chair for medical education in the Department of Pediatrics. He came to Penn in 1974 and has worked in pediatric emergency medicine, general pediatrics and child abuse, and throughout his career has been a strong advocate and teacher of students and housestaff. In 1998 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine for his efforts in developing the specialty of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. Dr. Ludwig has been the course director for three medical school courses and has served on the Curriculum Committee, Admissions Committee, Dean's Letter Committee, and the education subcommittee of the Committee on Appointments and Promotions. He is currently the Co-Chair of the Student Standard Committee. Dr. Ludwig has been recognized by the CHOP housestaff with their Faculty Teacher of the Year Award. He has also won the Christian R. & Mary E. Lindback Award (1998) and the R. Dunning Dripps Award. In 1998 the Board of Trustees of CHOP awarded him the John H. and Hortense Cassell Jensen Chair in Pediatric Development and Teaching. Dr. Ludwig describes his most important professional accomplishments as having taught others about the honor and joy that comes from caring for children and having guided many young physicians in their careers.

   Emma Meagher, M.D., is director of the Patient Oriented Research Training Program and the associate director of both the Center for the Treatment of Complex Hypertension and the Cardiovascular Risk Intervention Program. She graduated cum laude from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and in 1994, after completing her residency and fellowship training, she moved to the U.S. to take up a faculty position as an assistant professor, clinician-educator, in the Department of Medicine at Penn. Dr. Meagher initiated the development of PennMed's Patient Oriented Research Training Program, launched in the fall of 1997. The objective of this program is to introduce clinical fellows to the basic principles that underlie clinical research including biostatistical, ethical and translational aspects of this endeavor. Dr. Meagher has harnessed the collaboration of leading physician-scientists in the institution together with the directors of the programs in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics and bioethics. Additionally, she is the academic coordinator on a recent submission for a NIH K30 grant to support the development and implementation of a new Masters Degree Course in Clinical Investigation. Her clinical practice is in the area of cardiovascular risk intervention and the management of hypertension. Her research interests include mechanisms of vascular dysfunction in cardiovascular disease; alcohol induced liver and cardiovascular disease, and the role of antioxidant vitamin therapy in health maintenance and disease prevention. Dr. Meagher is also integrally involved in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education of pharmacology and therapeutics.
 

 

Medical Student Government Awards.

The graduating class selects annual recipients of two awards.

Clinical Medicine Teaching Award

Robert Gaiser,M.D., who is also a 1999 Lindback Award winner, is an assistant professor of anesthesia, who came to the department of anesthesia in 1992 as a fellow in obstetrical anesthesia, and joined the faculty in 1993. He has a B.S.E. from SEAS and an M.D. from Columbia University. He was named Teacher of the Year in Anesthesia twice and also received the Penn Pearls Teaching Award and in 1997 he received the Robert Dripps Memorial Teaching Award of PennMed. He has developed two significant resident teaching programs during his tenure, and has made a significant impact on his trainees.

 

 Basic Science Teaching Award

Alan C. Rosenquist, Ph.D., took his doctorate from Princeton in 1968, and joined the Penn faculty after a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Neurological Sciences here. He is now professor of neuroscience and associate dean for basic science education in the Medical School. He served as Chairman of the Curriculum and Academic Review Committees of the Neuroscience Graduate Group and remains active in graduate student education. The recipient of a number of teaching awards and honors, and a seasoned member of NSF review panels and NIH study sections, he is currently involved in developing and implementing the Medical School's new four-year Curriculum 2000. Meanwhile, he is course director for the Brain and Behavior Organ System Block. His research focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying recovery of function after brain injury, and he is as associate editor for the journal Cerebral Cortex. He is interested particularly in the interface between the basic and clinical neurosciences, teaching a Neuroscience Review Course for the housestaff in Neurology. He also serves as an officer of the Council on Accreditation of the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, which reviews and accredits institutions worldwide.


Almanac, Vol. 45, No. 29, April 20, 1999

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