Awards announced at Assembly honor individuals' contributions
- Honorary Membership -- the AAFP's highest honor -- was awarded to R. Michael Miller, J.D., the Academy's deputy executive vice president and a 30-year staff member (see story on page 2).
- Eugene Farley Jr., M.D., M.P.H., emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School's department of family medicine in Madison, was honored with the John G. Walsh Award. The award recognizes individuals who demonstrate leadership that significantly furthers the development of family medicine. (Farley was unable to attend the Assembly.)
- Luke Burchard, M.D., a practicing family physician and lecturer from Champaign, Ill., received the Public Health Award. The Illinois coordinator for the Academy's Tar Wars program and chair of the Doctors Ought to Care board of directors, he also has developed grade school health fairs, a poster contest on preventing drug abuse and a junior high school lecture program on sex education.
- Outgoing President Neil Brooks, M.D., bestowed the President's Award for exceptional service in furthering the purposes of the AAFP to Seymour Kummer, M.D., of Rockville, Conn., and Arthur Schuman, managing director of the Connecticut AFP in Bloomfield.
- Robert Brown Taylor, M.D., chair of the Oregon Health Sciences University School of Medicine's department of family medicine, Portland, was the recipient of the Thomas W. Johnson Award for outstanding contribution to family practice education. A prolific author, Taylor has written two widely used textbooks, Family Medicine Principles in Practice and the Manual of Family Practice. He also has worked extensively to promote family practice research and has created one of the most respected family medicine departments in the country.
- Samuel Adkins III, M.D., won the American Family Physician-Walter H. Kemp Award for the most outstanding article published in AFP in the previous year by an FP author. His article "Immunizations: Current Recommendations," was published in the Sept. 1, 1997 issue ofAFP. (Adkins was unable to attend the Assembly.)
- The Exemplary Teaching Award honored Jeannette South-Paul, M.D., associate professor and chair of the department of family medicine at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., (full-time faculty); Eric Evans, M.D., Iowa City, Iowa, now retired, who was a clinical lecturer at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, and Judith Gore Gearhardt, M.D., associate professor and director of student programs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson (part-time faculty); and Charles Stephens, M.D., Minneola, Kan., whose practice has been a rural medicine rotation site for almost 200 FPs (volunteer faculty).
- The Academy's 1999 Family Physician of the Year, Samuel R. Dismond, M.D., of Flint, Mich., was officially announced at the Assembly. The honor recognizes FPs who epitomize the finest standards of family health care (see "Family Physician of the Year treasures 'family' in family practice").
