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Thursday, June 6, 2013
Written by: UI Health Care Marketing and Communications

The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine will honor seven individuals at its Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony and luncheon Friday, June 7.

Established in 1998, the Distinguished Alumni Award is the highest honor the college bestows upon its graduates, recognizing their efforts to improve the delivery of health care, change the course of medical education, and advance biomedical research.

Awards are presented this year in three categories, Achievement, Early Distinguished Career Achievement, and Service.

The Award for Achievement recognizes significant professional accomplishments in science, medicine, and education. This year’s recipients are:

  • Gene G. Abel (’65 M.D.), professor at Emory University School of Medicine and at Morehouse School of Medicine, a renowned psychiatrist, educator, and pioneer in child sexual abuse prevention research.
  • Ann Harwood-Nuss (’73 M.D.), professor emeritus at the University of Florida, who directed one of the nation’s first emergency medicine residency programs and helped establish the school’s emergency medicine department.

The Award for Early Distinguished Career Achievement honors graduates of the past 20 years who have garnered distinction in their fields. This year’s recipients are:

  • Co-recipients Christopher T. Buresh (’01 M.D.) of the UI and Joshua T. White (’01 M.D.) of Gifford Medical Center in Vermont and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. Buresh and White, both emergency medicine physicians, established a primary care initiative in Haiti that was instrumental in helping them lead medical response teams following the nation’s 2010 earthquake.
  • Kenneth W. Staley (’04 M.D.), a former senior-level federal administrator now working on international health care delivery initiatives at Medtronic. Staley was a principal contributor to the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza and led the development of the program’s implementation plan.

The Award for Service recognizes meritorious leadership and service in a professional capacity or to a community, state, or nation. The recipients are:

  • Douglas W. Laube (’70 M.D., ’78 M.A.), a professor and former chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin who helped improve health care for millions of women through his professional leadership roles and efforts to reduce maternal mortality worldwide.
  • James A. Merchant (’66 M.D.), the founding dean of the UI College of Public Health whose research, public policy expertise, and advocacy efforts for federal and state initiatives have made an impact on public and rural health. Merchant is currently a UI professor in public health, medicine, and nursing.

Additional information on the 2013 honorees is available at www.healthcare.uiowa.edu/alumni/awards/current.html.