FPs Honored With Awards at AMA Meeting

When hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, a family physician led the federal disaster health response in Louisiana. When a devastating earthquake shook the Indonesian island of Nias that same year, a family physician directed efforts to address public health needs on the island. This year, on Nov. 11, the AMA honored the two physicians -- both Academy members -- for their leadership related to these disasters.

Rear Adm. William Craig Vanderwagen, M.D., was honored with the Distinguished Service Award, the AMA's highest award, for leading the response to Katrina and Rita. His work included assessing 43 hospitals in the Greater New Orleans area, guiding the re-establishment of public health and primary care services, and evaluating shelters that provided housing and care to more than 350,000 displaced people. He provided direction to more than 1,300 U.S. Public Health Service uniformed officers and 1,200 federalized civilians in the effort. Vanderwagen currently is HHS assistant secretary for public health emergency preparedness.

Capt. David Rutstein, M.D., M.P.H., received the AMA's Medal of Valor, awarded for courage under extraordinary circumstances in non-wartime situations, for his leadership of a public health force that established outreach missions in the most isolated sites on Nias after the 2005 earthquake. The missions' work included identification and containment of respiratory disease and dysentery; evaluation of water sources and distribution systems; identification and quantification of air pollutants; evaluation, treatment and medical evacuation of injured individuals; and training of health care and environmental health workers. Rutstein is chief medical officer of the Public Health Service and deputy director of HHS' Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.