People in the News/Awards -- November

Numerous Academy members received honors and awards in the past month.

Two AAFP members were elected members of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. Frank DeGruy III, M.D., of Castle Rock, Colo., is Woodward-Chisholm Professor and chair of the department of family medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver. Robert Phillips Jr., M.D., of Fairfax, Va., is director of the AAFP's Robert Graham Center in Washington, D.C.

Tsveti Markova, M.D., of Rochester, Mich., program director for the Wayne State University/Crittenton Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program in Rochester has won the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. She was among 10 program directors selected to receive the award this year from among 8,000 eligible directors nationwide.

The award honors program directors for exemplary teaching of residents and leadership of innovative and effective programs. Winners of the award must demonstrate excellent leadership and mentorship practices, teach excellent patient care and safety practices, encourage and achieve program development and innovation, and represent a strong role model to promote ethics of reflection and humanism.

Markova, who also is associate professor in the Wayne State University School of Medicine's Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences, became program director of the family medicine residency program in 2001. A former member of the Michigan AFP Board of Directors, she received the Michigan AFP's Educator of the Year Award in 2008.

Richard Pretorius, M.D., M.P.H., has been named professor and chair of the department of family medicine at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio. He assumed his new position on Nov. 1.

Pretorius previously was associate professor of family medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he founded and directed the Medical Education Teaching and Research Innovation Center. In 2009, he won an Innovations Award for his research n medical education from the Association of American Medical Colleges' Northeastern Group on Educational Affairs.

Before that, Pretorius practiced in rural Iowa as a member of the National Health Service Corps and worked with the University of Iowa College of Medicine as a medical student preceptor and clinical faculty member. He has served as medical director of two nursing homes, a mental health center, a rehabilitation center, a chronic fatigue clinic, and hospice and home visit programs.

Pretorius earned his medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville and completed his family medicine residency at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He later received a master of public health degree in health services administration from the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, or HIMSS, has recognized the efforts of various AAFP members with HIMSS Nicholas E. Davies Awards of Excellence. The awards program honors achievement in the implementation and use of health information technology -- specifically, electronic health records.

Miramont Family Medicine in Fort Collins, Colo., has received the HIMSS Ambulatory Davies Award. Miramont has been recognized as a Level 3 patient-centered medical home, or PCMH, by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, or NCQA. The four-clinic practice employs six family physicians and six midlevel providers and embraces a multidisciplinary team model of care. The practice's patients can take advantage of Miramont's open-access scheduling or choose to make a virtual office visit. Numerous ancillary services are available to patients, including on-site physical therapy and digital X-ray, prescription dispensing, mental health services, laser aesthetic procedures and bone densitometry.

FPs in the practice are founder John Bender, M.D.; Juan Rodriguez, D.O.; Kelly Lowther, M.D.; Douglas DeYoung, D.O.; Janice Weixelman, D.O.; and Linda Burnham, M.D.

Open Door Family Medical Centers in Ossining, N.Y., has received the Community Health Davies Award. Open Door is a federally qualified community health center, serving some 40,000 medically underserved uninsured and underinsured residents of New York's Westchester County. Open Door is accredited by The Joint Commission and also has been recognized as an NCQA Level 3 PCMH. Family physician Daren Wu, M.D., serves as medical director for Open Door.