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Awards

McCain chosen for administrative office professionals award

The University of Michigan Association of Administrative Office Professionals Award of Excellence program is designed to honor an administrative office professional who embodies the values, skills and behaviors reflected in the UM-AAOP mission, vision and core values statement.

The winner of the third annual UM-AAOP Award of Excellence is Lynn McCain, office manager and executive assistant to the chair, Department of Pathology.  McCain’s contributions - from compiling, laying out and editing the Pathology Department's annual report; her successful completion of the Foundations for Successful Leadership program; to her role in developing and leading the Pathology Support Staff Mentoring Team - have made her an important and indispensable component of the Pathology administrative team.    

 Each year the UM-AAOP Annual Award of Excellence program has grown and, this year, the UM-AAOP organization was both proud and excited to add a $500 cash prize to the award. Choosing a winner is no easy task and the selection committee had their work cut out as they reviewed and scored the candidates.  It was clear from the nominations submitted that each and every individual is held in high regard by their supervisors and peers, and has proven themselves integral to their area's success.

Nominees included: Lorie Kitchen, La Cheryl Wicker, Linda Brandt, Milly Oberle, Carrie Disney, Brenda Chan, Debbie Kwicinski, Elaine Foster, Jacki Roehm, Carol Richmond, Natasha Arnold, Lois Hauck, Kristine Peterson, Kathy Pedrys, Kathy Gassel, Victoria Lacca and Renee Raymond.

U-M Medical School resident physicians receive awards

Each year the Galens Medical Society at the Medical School honors resident physicians who display excellence in medical student education, inspiration, and leadership.

At the 90th annual Smoker, an annual musical parody of life at the University of Michigan Medical School, Psychiatry resident Justin Coffey and Obstetrics and Gynecology resident Courtney Barr were awarded Golden Beepers for their outstanding teaching practices.

Justin Coffey and Courtney Barr receive Golden Beeper awards.

Bronze Beeper awards are given to fifteen resident physicians each year to student teachers that best exemplify the high standards of medical student education, leadership and patient care. Additionally, these recipients received a commemorative Bronze Beeper pin: 

Sarah Berini - Neurology
Eric Dziuban - Pediatrics
Matthew Harting - Surgery
Matthew Hastings - Neurology
David Morris - Urology
Dan O'Connell - Medicine and Pediatrics
Paul Park - Surgery
Aaron Perdue - Orthopedic Surgery
Terry Platchek - Medicine and Pediatrics
Shane Quinonez - Pediatrics
Peter Sassalos - Surgery
Divya Shah - OB/GYN
Loay Kabanni - Critical Care Surgery
Anthony Wang – Neurosurgery

Galens also presents a Silver Shovel Award to the faculty member who has been voted the most outstanding clinical teacher. This year’s recipient was Paul Christensen, M.D., of Internal Medicine.

Sherman receives organic chemistry award

David H. Sherman, Ph.D., is one of 10 scientists from across the country to receive the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society.

The Cope awards recognize and encourage excellence in organic chemistry. Each Cope Scholar Award consists of $5,000, a certificate and an unrestricted research grant of $40,000. The awards are sponsored by the Arthur C. Cope Fund.

"Moving from the organic chemistry lab of Gilbert Stork at Columbia University to a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular biology was quite unusual in 1982," admits Sherman, 51, Hans W. Vahlteich Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy and a member of the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.

However, Sherman's penchant for forging new paths has served him well. The bacterial genetics training he gained as a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology allowed him to pursue his passion for investigating the genetic and biochemical basis of microbial biosynthesis of natural products.

Spencer is Health System social worker of the year

Beth Spencer, MSW, LMSW, received the seventh annual Beverly Jean Howard Award for Excellence in Social Work. The award recognizes excellence in social work practice and is given in the name of the beloved Health System colleague who died in September of 2002. 

Spencer is the director of Silver Club and an integral member of the Turner Geriatric team.

Any UMHS Department of Social Work manager or clinical social worker can be nominated for the award, which seeks the following qualifications:

  • professional performance at a consistently excellent level
  • significant contributions to the field of social work
  • excellence in service toward internal and external customers
  • promote social work practice within and outside the hospital
  • effective and innovative social work practice

Other nominees include: Janet Allen, Lorrie Carbone, Susan Duart-Digon, Mariko Foulk, Mary Gass, JoAnn Heap, Chris Henrickson, Wendy Jaffe, Maren Jensen, Erin Khang, Maria Letzmann, Claudia Schenk, Barb Shaltis, and Claire Weiner.

2009 Robert J. Delonis award recipients

The Robert J. Delonis Awards are given by the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County in recognition of exceptional commitment and leadership in the community’s efforts to end homelessness. The 2009 awards were given to:

Darrell “Skip” Campbell, Jr., M.D., senior associate director and chief of Clinical Affairs, and his wife Barb. Their efforts have significantly increased the resources brought to the Shelter’s health clinic and resulted in the creation of a full-time nurse practitioner position in the clinic. Strengthening relationships with the Health System has expanded the quality of care received by Shelter clients and increased their access to free health services. Together, the Campbell’s have shown tremendous compassion and determination in improving the quality of life of those in need in our community.

The University of Michigan Health System was also awarded for its influence and impact on the well-being of individuals in Washtenaw County, which can be seen in its work with numerous health care organizations throughout the community. 

Medical School faculty win innovative teaching award

Several Medical School faculty were honored with U-M’s first Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize and a $5,000 award for the most original approaches to teaching and creativity in the classroom. These faculty members put real creativity into their teaching, and innovation in teaching is every bit as important as it is in research.

The Medical School award winners for teaching innovations are:

Arno K. Kumagai, M.D., clinical associate professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Education and Rachel L. Perlman, M.D., clinical assistant professor of Internal Medicine – The Family Centered Experience Program: Patients as Teachers in Fostering Empathy and Patient-Centered Care

The Family Centered Experience is an innovative two-year program that is part of the required curriculum at the Medical School and involves using the power of patients’ stories to foster empathy and patient-centered care. In the FCE, pairs of medical students make scheduled visits over two years to the homes of volunteer patients and their families in order to listen to the volunteers’ stories about chronic illness and its care.

Lloyd Stoolman, M.D., professor of Pathology and Matthew Velkey, Ph.D., lecturer of Cell and Developmental Biology – Virtual Microscopy for Life Sciences Education

Revolutionary as light microscopes were for medicine, this means of studying diseased organs and tissues does not scale easily. The goal of this innovative project was to preserve the highly interactive laboratory experience by generating high-resolution digital replicas of the best tissue sections, compiling online image repositories, and deploying user-friendly, computer-based "viewers" that replicated the operation of a microscope.

Tesmer is recipient of 2009 John J. Abel Award

John J.G. Tesmer, Ph.D., associate professor of Pharmacology and research associate professor of the Life Sciences Institute, is the recipient of the 2009 John J. Abel Award, sponsored by Eli Lilly & Co. The award is given to a single young investigator for original, outstanding research contributions in the field of pharmacology.

Tesmer has consistently made seminal contributions to the understanding of the mechanism of action and structural biology of G protein-coupled receptor signaling cascade. GPCRs are the targets of a large fraction of the drugs currently on market, and control a vast range of physiologically important processes ranging from cardiovascular tone to vision. Knowledge of these structures and mechanisms of the proteins found in these cascades opens up new opportunities for the design or discovery of novel therapeutic agents.

U-M and Argentinian scientists receive collaborative award

Jessica Schwartz, Ph.D., professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the Medical School, and a research partner in Argentina have received a grant from the Fogarty International Center, a National Institutes of Health-affiliated center that encourages U.S. scientists to collaborate with scientists in developing countries on global health issues.

Schwartz is collaborating with Graciela Piwien-Pilipuk, an investigator at the Leloir Institute in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in studies of the role of a gene regulatory protein, C/EBP beta, in the process of fat cell differentiation.  The work will shed light on how fat cells develop, and may be helpful in the future in addressing clinical problems related to obesity. Graduate students from Argentina come to Schwartz’s U-M lab for part of their studies.

Perry receives award from National Kidney Foundation

Erica Perry, MSW, clinical social worker at the Outpatient Peritoneal Dialysis Clinic and Home Hemodialysis Clinic, has worked with dialysis patients for 24 years and received an award from the National Kidney Foundation. Perry has shown great dedication to our patients and founded the peer mentoring program at U-M. She also has a special place in her heart for young adults on dialysis.

"Over the years, I have found that, among all my patients, those most under served and at highest risk are the young adults with kidney disease who only constitute about 6% of this population,” Perry says. “I have made it a focus of my work and have had this group, among other things, fund raise for enrichment opportunities for people like themselves.”

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