Tuesday,
May 2, 2000
Volume 46
Number 31
www.upenn.edu/almanac/


School of Medicine's 1999-2000 Teaching Awards

The following full-time faculty members in the tenure and clinician-educator tracks were chosen by the Faculty Teaching Awards Committee to receive this year's teaching awards. Nominations were solicited from faculty, house staff and students.
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. This year's recipient is Dr. Don L. Siegel, assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and director of the Blood Bank/Transfusion Medicine section. For freshman and sophomores, he is responsible for the lecture and laboratory sessions dealing with blood group immunology and transfusion medicine. For juniors and seniors, he directs or teaches in several elective courses, notably PA305 Effective Use of Clinical Laboratory Tests, a workshop-type course designed to enhance a student's ability to use diagnostic tests appropriately. In each of these, Dr. Siegel's efforts have been described as "nearly legendary." Students have noted that his organization is impeccable, his delivery engaging, his meshing of the basic and clinical sciences seamless, and his enthusiasm contagious. He consistently receives the highest rankings possible from students, and he is equally well regarded by his peers. His own research program, in which he has developed technologies for cloning the human immune response, is state-of-the-art. To teach these methods, he co-directs an annual Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Course entitled, Phage Display of Combinatorial Antibody Libraries. He has an unusual gift for melding clinical medicine with basic science, and in every case the result is a model of outstanding teaching.    

The Blockley-Osler Award was created in 1987 by the Blockley section of the Philadelphia College of Physicians and 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 Dr. Istvan Seri, assistant professor of pediatrics, and clinical director of Newborn Services at CHOP. He obtained his M.D. degree at the Semmelweis Medical School in Budapest, Hungary in 1976. During his residency training he became interested in the cardiovascular, renal and endocrine actions of dopamine during development. Afterwards he spent two years at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm studying the dopaminergic modulation of cardiovascular and renal functions in whole animal models and renal micropuncture and cell physiology studies. In 1985, he obtained a Ph.D. degree from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in developmental cardiovascular physiology. In 1986, he arrived at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where he first completed a research fellowship in nephrology followed by one in neonatology. In 1991, he joined the faculty at the Children's Hospital in Boston. In 1994, he was recruited to neonatology, department of pediatrics at CHOP. He has always encouraged the students, residents and fellows to question why a given concept or clinical approach is being favored, to search for a better understanding of the underlying physiology and pathophysiology and to refuse to accept the answer to their question that "this is how things are being done."  

The Robert Dunning Dripps Memorial Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education, 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 Dr. Gregory Tino, assistant professor of medicine, director of Pulmonary Outpatient Practices, Pulmonary and Critical Care Division, at Medical Center. Dr. Tino graduated from Columbia with a B.A. degree, and received his M.D. from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1986. After completing residency training in internal medicine, and a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Penn, he joined the faculty in 1992. He is an active clinician with a major role in teaching and clinical research activities. He has received the Maurice F. Attie Faculty Teaching Award from the Department of Medicine at Penn for excellence in teaching and demonstration of humanistic qualities, as well as the Mayock-Fishman Teaching Award from Penn's Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Division. 

   The Dean's Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Training, was established in 1992-93 to recognize excellence in graduate education. The winner of the award for this year is Dr. Ali Naji, J. William White Professor of Surgery. Dr. Naji has been responsible for training several generations of graduate and medical students in his research laboratory in exploring the role of the immune system in the etiology of diabetes mellitus and organ transplantation. His students distinguish him as "a rigorous scientist, a wise and knowledgeable mentor, with a remarkable ability to crystallize the most critical questions." A former student writes, ". . . anyone who spends time with him is rapidly overwhelmed by his giving nature. In addition to his patient care responsibilities, he considers it his duty to not only train graduate students, but also promote their future careers. We look up to him, not because we must, but because he has the qualities we would like to see in ourselves. He is demanding of us, and we give our best to accomplish what he thinks we are capable of doing. He is everything I could imagine in a mentor, and everything I would like to see in myself. Hard work, dedication, compassion, insight-these are the qualities of excellence he brings to his graduate research training." "He allows us the freedom to exhibit scientific creativity and develops a bond with his students that is much more than a professional partnership."

The School of Medicine Teaching Awards continue... See Honors & Other Things in this issue.


Teaching Excellence at School of Dental Medicine

Four faculty from the School of Dental Medicine were recently recognized for teaching excellence by the senior class.

   Dr. Philip Giarraputo received the Earle Bank Hoyt Award, presented to an outstanding full-time junior clinical faculty member who is also a Penn Dental graduate. Dr. Giarraputo, assistant professor, clinician educator of restorative dentistry and director of the School's Primary Care Units, graduated from the School of Dental Medicine in 1967.

The Joseph L.T. Appleton Award, given to a part-time faculty member for excellence in clinical instruction, went to Dr. Pouya Hatam, who teaches periodontics.  

Dr. Bal Goyal received the Robert E. DeRevere Award for excellence in preclinical teaching by a part-time faculty member. This is the second year in a row for Dr. Goyal, director of the Prosthodontics Clinic and Preclinical Laboratory in Restorative Dentistry, to receive this award, and the fifth time in the past six years that he has received special honors from students. 

Dr. Elliot Hersh, associate professor of oral surgery/pharmacology and director of the Division of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, was again presented with the Basic Science Award for his teaching excellence in this area. Students have honored Dr. Hersh with this award seven of the past ten years. 

For more awards in Dental Medicine as well as other areas of the University, see Honors & Other Things.


Almanac, Vol. 46, No. 31, May 2, 2000

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