| VOLUME 10, NUMBER 3 | JORDAN J. COHEN, M.D., PRESIDENT |
DECEMBER 2000 |
Back to Front PageVOLUME 6, NUMBER 4
Nickens Award Winners Promote Diversity in Medicine
Donald E. Wilson, M.D., dean of the
University of Maryland School of Medicine,
is the first recipient of the Herbert W. Nickens Lecture Award.Herbert W. Nickens, M.D., worked throughout his life to address racial disparities in the world of medical education. To keep his memory alive and continue his tireless efforts to increase the number of minorities in the medical profession, the AAMC established the Herbert W. Nickens Memorial Fund shortly after Dr. Nickens' death in March 1999.
The fund provides scholarships to medical students from underrepresented minority groups, recognizes minority junior faculty members with an annual fellowship award, and establishes the Nickens Memorial Lecture, which honors outstanding contributions to furthering equity in health care. In October 2000, the AAMC announced the fund's first award recipients.
The inaugural Herbert W. Nickens Lecture Award went to Donald E. Wilson, M.D., dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who delivered the first annual Herbert W. Nickens Lecture at the AAMC's 111th Annual Meeting in Chicago. "The struggle for minority physicians has been a painful one," said Dr. Wilson in his lecture. Medical schools and teaching hospitals must work to make medicine a career in which minorities are welcome, he stressed. "If our culture is not diverse, our thoughts and actions can't be diverse either."
As the nation's first African-American dean of a predominantly non-minority U.S. medical school, Dr. Wilson has consistently demonstrated a dedication to diversity and equity in health care. During each year of his tenure as dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the number of underrepresented minority students has averaged nearly 15 percent of the first-year entering class.
Dr. Wilson is also nationally recognized for his efforts to increase the ranks of minority and women faculty members. Women head four academic departments at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, including the only ophthalmology department in the country headed by an African-American woman.
Dr. Wilson received his M.D. degree from Tufts University School of Medicine and completed his residency at the VA Hospital in Boston. After appointments in Chicago, London, and New York, he accepted the position of dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1991.
Other Nickens Fund award winners include Charles E. Moore, M.D., recipient of the first Nickens Faculty Award. Dr. Moore is an assistant professor of otolaryngology at the Emory University School of Medicine. Nickens Scholarship Award winners are Jim F. Hammel, Harvard Medical School; Yolandra Hancock, University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA School of Medicine; Sonia Lomeli, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine; Diana Ivette Bojorquez, Yale University School of Medicine; and Opeolu Adeoye, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
AAMC Honors Leaders in Academic Medicine The Nickens awards were only one of many honors that were bestowed at the AAMC Annual Meeting. Other awardees included:
- The University of Colorado School of Medicine received the AAMC Outstanding Community Service Award.
- Richard P. Usatine, M.D., associate dean for student affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA School of Medicine, won the second annual Humanism in Medical Education Award, sponsored by Pfizer Inc. and the Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative.
- Howard S. Barrows, M.D., director of the problem-based learning initiative at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, was this year's recipient of the Abraham Flexner Award for Distinguished Service to Medical Education.
- Jeremiah Stamler, M.D., professor emeritus at the Northwestern University Medical School, received the David E. Rogers Award, which is jointly sponsored by the AAMC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
- Ferid Murad, M.D., chair of the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School, was granted the 2000 Baxter Award for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences.
- Robert J. Glaser, M.D. Awards, established by the medical honor society Alpha Omega Alpha, were given to Frank M. Calia, M.D., University of Maryland School of Medicine; Cyril M. Grum, M.D., University of Michigan Medical School; Ronald J. Markert, Ph.D., Creighton University School of Medicine; and Jeanette J. Norden, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
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08 February 2005
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