People in the News/Awards -- November

Several AAFP members received prestigious awards this past month during the Academy's 2012 annual Scientific Assembly in Philadelphia.

The AAFP named Thomas Albani Jr., M.D., of Canfield, Ohio, as the Academy's national 2013 Family Physician of the Year. The award honors one outstanding U.S. family physician who provides patients with compassionate and comprehensive care. The selected FP serves as a role model in his or her community, to other health professionals, and to residents and medical students.

Albani, an assistant professor of family medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University College of Medicine in Rootstown, has been taking care of patients in his solo practice for nearly 30 years. In 2008, he helped establish a multi-county initiative designed to provide primary care to uninsured residents aged 19-64. Also in 2008, he was one of the founders of a free health clinic set up to care for the community's working poor. Albani currently serves as medical director of that clinic.

The AAFP also awarded Philip Huang, M.D., M.P.H., of Austin, Texas, the 2012 Public Health Award. This award recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the health of the American public.

Throughout his medical career, Huang has worked to improve the health of the public through the implementation of programs that reduce tobacco use and treat chronic disease.

Huang currently serves as the medical director for the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department where he oversees communicable disease control, emergency preparedness, immunizations and chronic disease prevention. He also is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Texas-School of Public Health in Houston.

Huang serves on the CDC's Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health and the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors. He has won numerous awards for his tobacco cessation efforts.

The AAFP awarded Richard Roberts, M.D., J.D., professor of family medicine in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, the 2012 John G. Walsh Award. The award is one of the highest bestowed by the AAFP and is designed to recognize long-term commitment and dedicated effective leadership that furthers the development of family medicine.

The award is not given annually, but rather at the discretion of the AAFP Board of Directors.

Roberts has served the AAFP in many capacities since 1981. He was elected as the AAFP president in 2000 and played a leading role in the Future of Family Medicine Project that began in 2002. Roberts has chaired a number of Academy committees and task forces and has lent his talents and expertise to numerous physician groups, medical organizations and governmental agencies. He currently serves as president of the World Organization of Family Doctors.