Themes of advocacy, empowerment and engagement were woven through the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine and Community Health’s (DFMCH) 18th annual McGovern-Tracy and Student Scholars awards ceremony, held May 9, 2019, at Memorial Union’s Tripp Commons.

The awards program honors UW School of Medicine and Public Health students or DFMCH residents and faculty who exemplify outstanding community service, outreach and leadership.

Former DFMCH Interim Chair James Davis, MD, MS, and Marc Hansen, MD
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After welcoming attendees, DFMCH Chair Valerie Gilchrist, MD, thanked the donors who made the evening possible and recognized DFMCH colleagues who traveled from outside Madison for the ceremony.

DFMCH Vice Chair for Education William Schwab, MD, was the evening’s master of ceremonies. He shared stories of award namesakes Isabel McGovern Kerr and Michelle Tracy, acknowledged DFMCH Emeritus Professor and former Chair John Frey, MD, for establishing the event and paid respects to the spouses of two early DFMCH collaborators who died in the past year.

In recognition of the ceremony’s new campus venue, throughout the evening Dr. Schwab also reflected on the idea of “place”, sharing history and facts about Memorial Union, UW-Madison, and our city and state.

Dr. Kevin Grumbach: Find Your Voice

Kevin Grumbach, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a nationally recognized expert on health policy reform and primary care improvement, was the ceremony’s keynote speaker. (Earlier that day, Dr. Grumbach presented DFMCH Grand Rounds and attended the department’s faculty development workshop.)

In his keynote, Dr. Grumbach reflected on the milestones medical students pass as they become physicians and honored those who have chosen service as an integral part of their medical education and future practice.

“It’s challenging enough to get through your training,” he said. “But those of you who are getting awards [tonight] have done something beyond mastering the art and practice and science of medicine…. You have recognized that health is more than what can be delivered through even the best of clinical care.”

Noting how social and environmental factors—the conditions in which people grow up, live and work—are primary drivers of health, Dr. Grumbach said that those called to be healers must engage on a broader level.

He then quoted a poem by American writer, artist and activist Ralph Chaplin that was frequently referenced by former DFMCH Chair Eugene Farley, MD: “Mourn not the dead, but rather mourn the apathetic throng: the cowed and the meek who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong, and dare not speak.”

“I would like to invite you to make sure you find your voice,” he concluded. “You have power beyond what you write on your prescription. You have a power as an advocate, as a champion and as a spokesperson for people who can’t always speak up.”

Meet the Winners

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Compassion in Action Community Health Leadership Award Recipients, from left: Jenna Krueger, Alice Wei, Sarah Elizabeth Weiss

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Compassion in Action Tibetan Delek Hospital in India Award Recipients, from left: Kahoua Yang, Peter Ngo

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Dr. Lester Brillman Scholarship Recipients, from left: Kevin Beene, Devin Walsh-Felz

Dr. Lester Brillman Leadership and Advocacy Award Recipient: Benjamin Beduhn

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Dr. Lester Brillman Mentorship in Family Medicine Award Recipients, from left: Benjamin Abeyta, MD; Anne Getzin, MD

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Founders Award (WAFP) Recipient: Brittany McAdams

Robert and Irma Korbitz Endowed Scholarship Recipients, from left: Garrett Donaldson, Collin Tyler Lash (not pictured: Brian Joseph Kroll, Joseph Wryas Pendleton)

Vogel Foundation Scholarship Recipient: Lawrence M. Moore

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NAPCRG Student Family Medicine/Primary Care Research Award Recipient: Ninah Divine

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Dr. Martin and Charlotte Gallagher Scholarship for Prolotherapy Recipients, from left: Parker Hoerz, MD; Joseph Vogelgesang, DO (not pictured: Jared Dubey, DO)

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Jan Ashe Memorial Award for Excellence in Community Radiography Recipient: Audrey Dubey

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McGovern-Tracy Student and Resident Scholars, from left: Xia Vang, MD; Caitlin Regner, MD; Kellia “KJ” Hansmann, MD; Scott Richard Reetz; Katherine “Yanzi” Jiang; John Matthew Ziegler; Nivedita Nair; DFMCH faculty member Jennifer Edgoose, MD, MPH (not pictured: David Glaubke)

The McGovern-Tracy and Student Scholars program is named for Isabel McGovern Kerr and Michele Tracy. McGovern Kerr endowed the DFMCH in 1998 to establish scholarships in memory of the McGovern family who pioneered in Wisconsin and were some of its first family physicians. Michele Tracy was a second-year UW medical student who was killed while participating in an educational service program in Malawi, Africa, in July 1999.

Published: May 2019