ACGME announces 2011 recipients of the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach for Program Director Excellence awards
Annual award recognizes notable program directors

CHICAGO, November 1, 2010 –The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has chosen the 2011 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award recipients. The annual award is given to 10 outstanding program directors, who are honored for their commitment to teaching and their innovative and effective teaching methods. The awardees were selected from among numerous program directors nominated by faculty members, designated institutional officials and residents. The award is named after Parker J. Palmer, PhD, a noted sociologist and teacher who wrote The Courage to Teach and other books on teaching and vocation.

The program directors listed below are the 2011 Courage to Teach Award recipients.

• Maria Aaron, MD, ophthalmology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia

• Stanley Ashley, MD, general surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

• Mark Bugnitz, MD, pediatrics, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee

• Christian de Virgilio, MD, general surgery, Los Angeles County-Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California

• Byron Joyner, MD, MPA, urology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

• Gregory Kane, MD, internal medicine, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

• Tsveti Markova, MD, FAAFP, Wayne State University/Crittenton, Rochester, Michigan

• Vijay Rajput, MD, internal medicine, UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (Camden)/Cooper University Hospital, Camden, New Jersey

• Karen Souter, MBBS, FRCA, anesthesiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

• Ann Van Heest, MD, orthopaedic surgery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Each Courage to Teach honoree will receive $1,000 and a plaque, along with registration and travel to the 2011 ACGME Annual Educational Conference, which will be held March 3-6 in Nashville, Tennessee. The Courage to Teach recipients will be recognized at an awards luncheon at the conference and will also be invited to attend a professional retreat at the Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee, Vermont.

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The ACGME is a private, nonprofit organization that accredits approximately 8,800 residency programs in 133 specialties and subspecialties that educate 111,000 residents. Its mission is to improve the quality of health care in the United States by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians’ education.