Scheckler Research Awards

The William E. Scheckler Prizes were established by the Faculty Council of the Department of Family Medicine in 1994 to honor Dr. Scheckler's contributions to the promotion of scholarly activity in the Department. An award is given each year at the DFM Statewide Meeting to a faculty or staff whose paper published in a peer reviewed journal over the previous calendar year was considered the best by a committee of peers. All research papers published that year are eligible for the award. The criteria on which the nominations are judged also include the article's likelihood of having an impact on the daily practice of medicine, medical education or the advancement of research knowledge. An additional award is given to a resident, fellow or medical student nominated by a DFM faculty or staff for an outstanding research project completed during the year.

For 2004, the committee considered 19 peer-reviewed articles written by DFM faculty and staff and chose two for recognition. Interestingly the articles were printed in the Journal of the American Board of Family Practice in the same month.

• Michael Fleming, MD, MPH and Marlon Mundt, MA, MS published "Carbohydrate-Deficient Transferrin: Validity of a New Alcohol Biomarker in a Sample of Patients with Diabetes and Hypertension" in the Journal of the American Board of Family Practice July-August 2004, Vol 17 #4 p.247-255. Mike and Marlon found that the percentage of CDT levels are a useful biomarker in both detecting and/or confirming high-risk drinking for primary care patients who have type II diabetes and hypertension.
  
  
• Paul D. Smith, MD, Jonathan Temte, MD, PhD, John W. Beasley, MD and Marlon Mundt MA, MS published "Radiographs in the Office: Is a Second Reading Always Needed?" in the Journal of the American Board of Family Practice July-August 2004, Vol 17 #4 p.256-263. Paul and his team found that primary care physicians were able to identify radiographs for which a second reading by a radiologist would not result in substantial changes in care provided to primary care patients in their offices.

The following faculty-nominated students were recognized for work on projects completed as medical students:

• Rachel Quinn, MD was chosen for her work as a fourth-year medical student with Alex Adams, MD, PhD and her team on "Low Recognition of Childhood Overweight and Disease Risk among Native-American Caregivers." This work resulted in a publication by the same name with Dr. Adams and Ron Prince, MS in the Journal of Obesity Research in January 2005.
  
  
• Kathryn J. Fowler was recognized for her work as a medical student with Lu Marchand, MD on a project that involved interviewing key members of a statewide coalition for advance care planning in Wisconsin called Life Planning 2000. The analysis resulted in a paper submitted for publication by Dr. Marchand, Kathryn Fowler and Obrad Kokanovic titled "Building Successful Coalitions for Promoting Advance Care Planning."