Faculty, staff and friends of the UW Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (DFMCH) gathered at the Pyle Center on November 14, 2018, to honor the recipients of the 2018 Marc Hansen, MD, Lectureship; the John H. Renner, MD, “Wisconsin Idea” award; and several other awards.
2018 Renner Hansen Photo Slideshow
Remembrances and Acknowledgements of Service
Following a welcome by DFMCH Chair Valerie Gilchrist, MD, DFMCH Vice Chair for Education William Schwab, MD, offered a remembrance of Rudy Hecht, MD, the first medical director of the Northeast Clinic; and Walter Pridham, the spouse of Karen Pridham, an emeritus professor of nursing who played an important role in the department’s early years.
Recognitions continued with former DFMCH Chair John Frey, MD, acknowledging the service of three long-time DFMCH faculty members retiring this year—Kenneth Kushner, PhD; Richard Roberts, MD, JD; and Paul Smith, MD—and Dr. Gilchrist announcing the newly created Richard Roberts, MD, JD, Clinical Excellence Award.
AAFP Meritorious Service Award: David Deci, MD
David Deci, MD, director of the DFMCH’s Office of Medical Student Education, received the American Academy of Family Physicians Award (AAFP) for Distinguished and Meritorious Service to Family Medicine.
Wisconsin Academy of Family Physicians (WAFP) Executive Director Larry Pfeiffer presented the award to Dr. Deci for his long-time dedication to advancing, contributing, and supporting to the AAFP and the specialty of family medicine.
Chair’s Award: Kim Jansen and Megan Childers
Kim Jansen and Megan Childers, administrative program specialists in the Chair’s office, each received Chair’s Awards. In her award introduction, Dr. Gilchrist shared her appreciation for Kim and Megan’s patience, support, energy, intelligence and everyday smile.
Hansen Lecturer: Russell Lemmon, DO
Russell Lemmon, DO, received the Marc Hansen Lectureship Award. After earning his medical degree at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, Dr. Lemmon completed residency at the MacNeal Hospital Family Medicine Residency in Berwyn, Illinois, and went on to serve as a family physician in the U.S. Air Force. He is a graduate of the DFMCH’s academic integrative health fellowship, and is the medical director of the UW Health Northeast Family Medical Center.
In his presentation, “Moments Leading to Mission,” Dr. Lemmon reflected on experiences that shaped his career and influenced how he thinks about the word mission in all facets of life.
The first was as a family physician at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. He encountered a patient who, after several surgeries and treatments for a traumatic spine injury, struggled with severe chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder. “That experience really shifted how I approach patients with pain problems or who feel like they have no hope,” he recalls.
He later completed training in acupuncture with the goal of having another tool to help patients with pain, but also came to see the value of simply sitting with those patients during those sessions.
Three years later, he was deployed to Iraq, where he worked as a physician with the special forces. Struck by the laser-focus definition of “mission” in a combat environment, he recognized in himself a desire to connect to a mission larger than himself.
“The biggest thing that I love about being part of the community here in our department is being able to connect to [our] many missions,” he reflects. Recent examples include working with local organizations to address food insecurity in his clinic’s patient population, and participating in the Whole Health program’s educational partnership with the Veterans Health Administration.
“It boils down to one question,” he concluded. “What matters to you?”
Renner Award Winner: Byron Crouse, MD
Byron Crouse, MD, received the John H. Renner, MD “Wisconsin Idea” Award for leading several programs focused on educating physicians to serve rural areas of Wisconsin and the nation.
Dr. Crouse retired in May after a 17-year career at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health—most recently as the associate dean for rural and community health.
In his presentation, “Reflecting on Family Medicine and Community Partnerships,” Dr. Crouse recalled how he first learned about the Wisconsin Idea and what it means, and shared accomplishments from his career here.
He helped establish the Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine (WARM) and also directed the Wisconsin Rural Physician Residency Assistance Program (WRPRAP), a DFMCH-administered, Wisconsin legislature-supported program that distributes grants to rural hospitals and educational institutions statewide to help them develop rural residency programs, tracks and rotations.
Through interprofessional connections and partnerships with communities across the state, Dr. Crouse played a critical role in strengthening the rural physician pipeline for Wisconsin and the nation.
“Partnerships are what makes things happen,” he concluded, encouraging attendees to always listen, be persistent, and build on assets to solve problems.
Faculty, Staff and Researcher Awards
Tyler Ho and Jeanne Rotter each received DFMCH Robert Drachenberg Staff Excellence Awards.
The lead pharmacist at the UW Health Northeast Family Medical Center, Ho led the implementation of a system-wide primary care pharmacist program at the clinic and has championed efforts to improve care of patients on chronic opioid therapy. He was commended for his collaboration, “big-picture” understanding, positive outlook and commitment to patients and staff.
Rotter is the chief UW accountant for the DFMCH. She is responsible for managing UW research post‐award funds, UW faculty and staff payroll, UW Foundation financial transactions and many other duties. She was commended for her efforts to improve internal financial processes, her positive relationships inside and outside the department, and her commitment to training others in the department.
Randall Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM, and Lee Dresang, MD, each received DFMCH Faculty Excellence Awards.
A national expert on addiction medicine, Dr. Brown is the director of the American Board of Addiction Medicine and the Addiction Medicine Foundation. He leads the Wisconsin Opioid Project ECHO®, the University of Wisconsin Addiction Consultation Hotline and the Center for Addictive Disorders at UW Hospitals and Clinics. He is also the founding director of the UW Addiction Medicine Fellowship and is the president of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship Directors’ Association.
Dr. Dresang is international leader in maternity care education who serves on the editorial board of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics (ALSO®) course, and has helped establish ALSO programs in more than a dozen countries in Latin America. He is also a primary developer of the Basic Life Support in Obstetrics (BLSO) curriculum, has created and sustained a nationally recognized prenatal ultrasound course, and directs the Madison residency program’s maternity care pathway.
Brian Arndt, MD, received the William E. Scheckler, MD, Outstanding Research Publication Award (Faculty or Staff) for his Annals of Family Medicine publication, “Tethered to the EHR.” The paper, which showed that primary care physicians spend more than one-half of their workday interacting with the EHR during and after clinic hours, has had impressive reach. According to data from Altmetric, which tracks and analyzes the online activity around scholarly research outputs, the paper was among the top five percent of all research outputs scored, and was the third highest-scoring output from the Annals of Family Medicine (source, accessed December 10, 2018). It was also recently referenced in a New Yorker article written by Dr. Atul Gawande.
Congratulations to all the winners!
Published: December 2018