Katharyn Meredith Atkins, HMS assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has been awarded the 2016 Grant V. Rodkey Award by the Massachusetts Medical Society. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to medical education.
Atkins was nominated by nearly three dozen of her students. Among many attributes, they cited her love of education, “evident in how she facilitates student learning, balances individual student mentorship with thoughtful teaching and cultivates engaging and meaningful learning opportunities in her clinic,” according to the society’s statement.
Atkins is associate director of the Center for Education and director of the Principal Clinical Experience and Undergraduate Medical Education programs at Beth Israel Deaconess. She is also faculty advisor to the Medical Students Offering Maternal Support program (MOMS) initiated by Mary Tate ‘17.
Atkins will be honored at the society's annual meeting in May.
Pui Chuen “Wallace” Hui, HMS research fellow in dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, has been selected to participate in the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Focused this year on physics, the meeting will bring 30 Nobel laureates together with 400 young scientists from all over the world.
Hui, a postdoctoral fellow in Brett Bouma’s lab in the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Mass General, is working on novel imaging strategies in biomedical imaging, particularly in the context of optical coherence tomography.
Harvey Makadon, HMS professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has been honored by the Massachusetts Medical Society as the 2016 recipient of the society’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health Award, an honor recognizing an individual who has made outstanding contributions to LGBT health. He will receive the award on Nov. 3 at the Club Café in Boston.
In nominating him for the award, his colleagues noted that “few individuals have had more of an impact on LGBT health than Dr. Makadon, a visionary whose work has improved the lives of countless people.”
Makadon is also director of the National LGBT Health Education Center at the Fenway Institute in Boston and director of the National Center for Innovation in HIV Care at Fenway Health.
Fellow physicians cited his leadership in producing the Fenway Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health, which is published by the American College of Physicians in 2008 and is the first LGBT medical textbook used in medical schools across the country.
Kevin Ard, HMS instructor in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, was selected by the Massachusetts Medical Society as the 2016 recipient of its Men’s Health Award. He will receive the award, which recognizes an individual who has advanced the cause of men’s health, at the society’s 14th annual Symposium on Men’s Health on June 16 in Waltham.
In nominating him for the award, Ard’s colleagues cited his work on health disparities affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities; infectious diseases; and primary care for gay men, as well as his peer-reviewed scholarship focusing on infectious diseases, intimate partner violence and LGBT issues.
Ard is also associate director of the Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy Program in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Mass General and the medical director of the National LGBT Health Education Center at the Fenway Institute in Boston.
William Kaelin, HMS professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a senior physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has won the Science of Oncology Award and Lecture from the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Kaelin will be recognized for his “outstanding contributions to basic or translational research in cancer” during the society’s annual meeting in June.
Kaelin’s research focuses on understanding how mutations in tumor-suppressor genes affect cancer development. “His work on the VHL protein was instrumental for the subsequent successful development of VEGF inhibitors to treat kidney cancer,” the society announcement said.
Lachlan Forrow, HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was named the 2016 recipient of the Henry Ingersoll Bowditch Award for Excellence in Public Health by the Massachusetts Medical Society. He will receive the award at the organization’s annual meeting on May 5 in Boston.
Forrow, who is also director of the Palliative Care Programs and Director of Ethics Programs at Beth Israel Deaconess, is being recognized for his work in advancing state and national improvements in end-of-life care.
The award, one of the society’s most prestigious honors, is presented annually to a Massachusetts physician who demonstrates creativity, commendable citizenship, initiative, innovation and leadership in the public health and advocacy fields.
George Church, the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at HMS, received the Ninth Annual Genomic Medicine Award at The Future of Genomic Medicine IX conference on March 3. The conference, presented in partnership with AAAS/Science Translational Medicine and Scripps Translational Science Institute, was held at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.
Benjamin Neale, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, received the Leena Peltonen Prize for Excellence in Human Genetics. Neale was recognized for his contributions in developing statistical genetics and applying these methods to cracking the genetics of neuropsychiatric diseases.
"Among all the excellent candidates, Ben Neale clearly stood out for his diverse talents, enthusiasm and scientific contributions," Manolis Dermitzakis, director of the Leena Peltonen School of Human Genomics and chair of the selection committee, said in a press release.
Neale was selected from a pool of 10 candidates. His research focuses heavily on the development and application of statistical genetic methodology. He has contributed to the development of popular genetic software tools and led the design of the exome chip, a genotyping array that captures rare coding variation in a cost-effective manner.
The $10,000 award was bestowed upon Neale at the University of Helsinki in Finland on March 3.
Derek Stenquist, Class of 2016, was recognized with Harvard Medical School’s 2016 Hollis L. Albright Scholar Award for his passions for academic pursuit and global health.
While at HMS, Stenquist participated in community health work in the Dominican Republic and Honduras. His commitment to Operation Walk Boston while at HMS led to his creation of a Spanish-language patient-education module to be deployed this year.
Stenquist received the award on March 1 at the Hollis L. Albright MD '31 Symposium. The award is presented to an outstanding medical or surgical student at HMS who is dedicated to the same values as Albright. For Stenquist this means pursuing a career as an academic orthopedic surgeon dedicated to patient care, medical education and outcome research both at home and abroad.
