ACGME Seeks Nominations for National Teaching, Leadership Awards

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, or ACGME, is accepting nominations for the 2008 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach and Courage to Lead Awards. The awards honor outstanding residency and fellowship program directors and institutional officials.

The Courage to Teach Awards recognize program directors "who are dedicated and effective teachers and who lead excellent and innovative residency and fellowship programs," according to ACGME. Six family physicians have received Courage to Teach Awards since the award program's inception seven years ago. Most recently, Neil Mitnick, D.O., family medicine residency program director at Albany Medical Center, Albany, N.Y., was honored in 2007.

The Courage to Lead Awards recognize institutional officials who work in small community, large community and tertiary academic hospitals.

Information on submitting nominations for the teaching award or the leadership award, which must be received by July 2, is available on the ACGME Web site.

Recipients of the 2008 awards will be chosen in September and honored at an awards dinner Feb. 11 during the AGCME winter meeting. Honorees will receive a plaque and $1,000 and will be invited to attend an educational retreat at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Mich.