Joan Reede, Harvard Medical School (HMS) associate professor of medicine and dean for diversity and community partnership, and Nancy Oriol, HMS associate professor of anesthesia, recently became two of 22 distinguished professors honored with the Beckman Trust Award. The award recognizes current or former professors, teachers, or instructors from universities around the United States who have inspired students to make significant contributions to society. Each of the recipients will receive a $25,000, one-time cash prize from the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award Trust.The Beckman Trust Award was first introduced in 2008. Awards are based on a nomination application process. 
Reede was nominated by her former Harvard School of Public Health student, Nawal Nour, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at HMS. Oriol was nominated by Jeffrey Flier, HMS dean of the faculty of medicine, and Cheryl Dorsey, a former student.
Lynn Eckert, senior lecturer in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, was selected by the Board of the Foundation for the History of Women in Medicine (FHWIM) as the 2012 recipient of the Alma Dea Morani, MD Renaissance Woman Award.
Eckhert is currently serving as interim dean of the Lebanese American University in Beirut, and director of academic programs at Partners Healthcare International in Boston. She has previously served as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, and is a past president of the Association of Teachers of Preventative Medicine. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians.
Since 2000, the FHWIM has presented the Alma Dea Morani Award, which honors an outstanding woman physician or scientist in North America who has furthered the practice and understanding of medicine and has made significant contributions outside of medicine.
FHWIM is an internationally recognized organization whose mission is to promote the history of women in medicine and the medical sciences on a national and international level.
John Mekalanos, the Adele Lehman Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, is among four inaugural winners of the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award.
The major new award honors Mekalanos for his multiple discoveries on the complex and multifaceted mechanisms of cholera pathogenesis. The award carries a prize of €120,000 ($155,500). Mekalanos, the head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at HMS, delivered an award lecture Nov. 13 at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.
James Perrin, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and director of general pediatrics at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children, will become president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for a one-year term in 2014. He accepted the role of president-elect at the group’s New Orleans conference in October.
Perrin is the founder and director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy. He also leads the Clinical Coordinating Center of Autism Speaks Autism Treatment Network (ATN) and Autism Speaks ATN’s Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health. He has served in various roles with the AAP, including leading groups on mental health, genetics and developmental disabilities.
Benjamin Warf, associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and associate in neurosurgery at Boston Children’s Hospital, was recently named a 2012 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, one of four Boston-area recipients of the “genius grant.” The award comes with a $500,000 stipend to individuals who have shown originality and dedication in their creative pursuits.
Warf, director of neonatal and congenital anomaly neurosurgery at Children’s, developed an effective method for treating hydrocephalus, an excess of water on the brain, in his patients in Uganda by cauterizing tissues in the brain to slow the production of fluid and make small openings in the base of the brain to allow for fluid to drain into the cavity around it.
Warf and his colleagues are partnering with a hospital and medical school in western Uganda to follow mothers and babies from birth to six months of age to learn more about those who develop hydrocephalus. He has trained 20 neurosurgeons, mainly in Africa and hopes that the study data will provide a more global look at the condition and the various pathogens that potentially cause it. The MacArthur award will further that goal.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has recognized Boston Children’s Hospital’s Kidney Transplant Program as a national leader in its field. The program received a Silver Level Award, the only program in New England—adult or pediatric—to be so recognized, at a Medal of Honor Ceremony held in October. Boston Children’s nephrology department is the only program in New England dedicated to caring for young children and teens.
Measurements of a program’s performance in key areas were evaluated, including how quickly patients received transplants after being placed on a waitlist, post-transplant graft survival rates and patient mortality rates while waiting for an organ to become available. Over 700 transplant programs were evaluated, with only 44 given the Silver Level Award.
Lynn Eckhert, senior lecturer in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, was recently selected by the Board of the Foundation for the History of Women in Medicine (FHWIM) as the 2012 recipient of the Alma Dea Morani, MD Renaissance Woman Award.
Eckhert is currently serving as interim dean of the Lebanese American University in Beirut and director of academic programs at Partners Harvard Medical International in Boston. She has previously served as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, and is a past president of the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians.
Since 2000, the FHWIM has presented the Alma Dea Morani Award, which honors an outstanding woman physician or scientist in North America who has furthered the practice and understanding of medicine and has made significant contributions outside of medicine.
Joan Reede, dean for diversity and community partnership and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, was recently awarded by Wells Fargo the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award. Recipients of the award receive $25,000 as a one-time grant to be used at their sole discretion. The Beckman Award was created to benefit teachers who have inspired their former students to make a difference in their communities.
Reede, the School’s first dean for diversity and community partnership, works to recruit and prepare minority students for jobs in the biomedical professions and to promote better health care policies for the benefit of minority populations.
Curtis Cetrulo Jr., instructor in surgery at Harvard Medical School, recently led the team in the completion of a hand transplant, the first procedure of its kind at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Hand transplants, though still relatively rare, have proven to restore the recipients’ ability to perform many routine daily tasks. In 2011, Mass General announced that it was launching a hand transplant program, with the goal of eventually developing a way to replace limbs without subjecting the recipient to a lifetime of anti-rejection drugs.
Physicians from Brigham and Women’s, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Boston Children’s Hospital were involved in the procedure, participating in planning meetings and observing or assisting in the operation.
Mary-Jo Delvecchio Good, professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, was recently selected by the Foreign Affairs Office of the Shanghai Municipal Government as the recipient of the Silver Magnolia Award. Good was nominated by alumni of the Fogarty Center-sponsored training program for her contributions to educating young Chinese leaders and researchers in the field of mental health and for supporting young women to become leaders in the field of mental health.
Good was among 58 individuals, including four women, from 17 countries who received the Silver Magnolia Award this year. Since 1989, the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government has conferred the award in recognition of outstanding contributions of foreigners to Shanghai’s economic, social, and cultural development.
