Awards, honors given for sterling service

Dr. Walsh is a pathology resident at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and serves as resident board member of the CAP’s Strategy and Risk Management Committee.

A winner of multiple scholarships for academic excellence, Dr. Walsh received two teaching appointments, first as a preceptor for physician assistant students at DeSales University and, later, as a small-group medical student instructor in cardiac anatomy. She has presented research nationally at the University of Kentucky First Annual Neuro-Oncology Symposium and at the American Academy of Neuropathology, as well as internationally, at the 2012 Irish American Pediatric Conference in Belfast.

Laboratory Improvement Program Service award, to Anthony A. Killeen, MD, PhD, for his many years of service to the College’s Laboratory Accreditation Program for which he served as a laboratory inspector.

Dr. Killeen is a professor and vice chair for clinical affairs in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Minnesota. He chairs the CAP Instrumentation Resource Committee and the Accuracy-Based Surveys Workgroup. He has served as member, vice chair, and chair of the CAP Chemistry Resource Committee.

CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program Service award, to Paul Bachner, MD, for his more than 45 years of service to the CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program, for which he began as an inspector in 1968. He has twice been a regional commissioner and has served as a member of the Council on Accreditation. Dr. Bachner is now a member of the CAP Laboratory Accreditation Committee.

Dr. Bachner was a member of the Board of Governors and is a past president of the CAP. He was president of the New York State Society of Pathologists from 1987 to 1991, and he was a member of the CDC Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee from 1992 to 1995.

Dr. Bachner is a professor and immediate past chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Kentucky. He is director of laboratories at the University of Kentucky and medical director of the Division of Laboratory Services of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Excellence in Teaching award, to Deborah A. Perry, MD, as a facilitator for the Laboratory Medical Director Advanced Practical Pathology Program. Dr. Perry is recognized for her leadership as an outstanding educator and advocate for pathology and patients.

She is chair of the CAP Point-of-Care Testing Committee and an active member of the CAP Spokespersons Network. She had served on the Hematology Resource and the Publications committees.

Dr. Perry is medical director of pathology at Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, Omaha, and a pathologist at Nebraska Methodist Hospital.

Excellence in Teaching award, to Michael L. Talbert, MD, as a facilitator for the Laboratory Medical Director Advanced Practical Pathology Program. Dr. Talbert is recognized for his unique perspective as an educator, pathology advocate, and practicing pathologist.

He is the Lloyd E. Rader professor and chairman of the Department of Pathology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He is director of the pathology house staff training program at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.

Dr. Talbert is a member of the CAP Quality Practices Committee and an advisor to the Graduate Medical Education Committee, for which he previously served as chair. He has served on the Council on Education, Nominating Committee, and Practice Management Committee.

Excellence in Teaching award, to Thomas L. Williams, MD, as a facilitator for the Laboratory Medical Director Advanced Practical Pathology Program.

Dr. Williams is a former chair of the Publications and the Quality Control committees. He has served on numerous councils and committees, among them the Council on Education, Council on Membership and Professional Development, Chemistry Resource Committee, Quality Assurance Committee, and Surveys Committee. He is a member now of the STS Venture Committee.

Dr. Williams is chair of the Department of Pathology and medical director of the Pathology Center at Nebraska Methodist Hospital in Omaha, as well as laboratory director at the Methodist Physicians Clinic. He is a clinical assistant professor of pathology at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine.
Dr. Williams served as president of the Nebraska Association of Pathologists.

Excellence in Education award, to Elizabeth H. Hammond, MD, for her expertise and contributions to CAP education across the College. Dr. Hammond was recognized for her leadership in planning the education programs for the CAP annual meetings, envisioning and leading the development of the CAP competency model for pathologists, and developing the Breast Predictive Factors Testing Advanced Practical Pathology Program. She has been instrumental in efforts to provide learning programs focused on helping pathologists become more central to the health care team and engaged in the transformation of the specialty.

Dr. Hammond received a second honor—the Pathology Advancement award—for her efforts in establishing the CAP Pathology and Laboratory Quality Center and thus advancing the CAP’s presence in evidence-based research and content development. Dr. Hammond is the first to receive this award.

Dr. Hammond is a consulting pathologist with Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City. She is a trustee of the Intermountain Healthcare Research Foundation and a professor of pathology and adjunct professor of internal medicine (cardiology) at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She is director of cardiac transplant pathology with the Utah Cardiac Transplant Program and a member of the National Quality Forum Scientific Advisory Panel for Cancer Specific Performance Measures. She also serves on the University of Utah School of Medicine alumni advisory board.

Dr. Hammond, a past president of the Utah Society of Pathologists, has served as a member of the CAP Board of Governors and on numerous CAP councils and committees. She chaired the CAP Cancer and Education committees.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Katharine Appleton Downes, MD, for her impact on the pathology profession through contributions to the CAP over an extended period.

Dr. Downes chaired the CAP’s Transfusion Medicine Resource Committee, which serves as a resource for oversight of laboratory accreditation in transfusion medicine, laboratory proficiency testing, educational activities, and regulatory issues for more than 4,000 laboratories. The committee oversees 25 Surveys involving complex immunohematology, virology, molecular assays, bacterial cultures, and assays for fetomaternal hemorrhage. Dr. Downes recruited experts for each Survey to ensure competent and reliable performance. She encouraged participation in the educational activities of CAP annual meetings, resulting in the committee’s participation in several roundtables and short educational programs.

Dr. Downes served as a chair of the Hematology Cluster of the CAP Council on Scientific Affairs. She represented the College in external transfusion medicine initiatives, serving as liaison to the American Society of Anesthesiology blood management committee and now as the CAP representative to the CDC National Healthcare Safety Network Hemovigilance Module Stakeholder Group.

She served as chair of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute committee on validation of automated systems for pretransfusion testing.

Dr. Downes is medical director of transfusion medicine/blood bank and of the Coagulation Laboratories, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, and assistant professor of pathology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Lifetime Achievement award, to James D. Faix, MD, for his contributions to the CAP and pathology.

Dr. Faix is a member of the Council on Scientific Affairs, Standards Committee, and Chemistry Resource Committee. He also volunteers for the American Association for Clinical Chemistry and is a member of its program coordinating committee and chair of its division management group. He is a member of the committee for standardization of thyroid function tests of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine.

Dr. Faix is a clinical professor of pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Ann T. Moriarty, MD, for her impact on pathology through contributions to one or more areas of the CAP.

Dr. Moriarty serves in the CAP House of Delegates and as an inspector for the CAP’s Laboratory Accreditation Program. She has been chair and vice chair of the Cytopathology Committee, and she was a member of the Nominating Committee, Ad Hoc Committee on Gynecologic Cytopathology, and Gyn Quality Practices Collaborative Project. She served as American Society of Cytopathology president in 2008 and 2009.

Dr. Moriarty is on the editorial review board of Cancer Cytopathology and the professional advisory board of the Wellness Community of Central Indiana. She teaches in the Indiana University School of Cytotechnology and is a volunteer associate clinical professor in the Department of Pathology at Indiana University Medical Center.

Dr. Moriarty works for AmeriPath Indiana, and she is a pathologist consultant for Mid America Clinical Laboratories and has appointments at six Indiana hospitals.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Raouf E. Nakhleh, MD, for his contributions to the CAP and pathology.

Dr. Nakhleh is a leader in pathology and laboratory medicine quality improvement and chair of the CAP Quality Practices Committee. He has contributed significantly to the CAP-wide efforts to improve pathology practices through his work on the Standards Committee, the Center Committee for Guideline Development, Ad Hoc Committee for Center Plan Development, Surgical Pathology Committee, Pathology Performance Measures Development Working Group, and Cancer Protocol Panel for Gastrointestinal Tumors.

Dr. Nakhleh chaired the first guideline expert panel on Consensus Statement for Effective Communication of Urgent Diagnoses and Significant Unexpected Diagnoses in Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology. He is leading an effort now to develop a guideline that will help reduce interpretive diagnostic errors.
Dr. Nakhleh is professor of pathology and consultant pathologist at Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Fla.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Paul A. Raslavicus, MD, for his impact on pathology through contributions to one or more areas of the CAP over an extended period.

Dr. Raslavicus was CAP president from 2001 to 2003. He served as chair of the Council on Government and Professional Affairs and of the Finance, Reimbursement, Strategic Planning, and Information Services committees. He participated in analyses of the future of pathology informatics and digitized pathology imaging and in developing a pathology digital imaging standard.

Dr. Raslavicus has had an abiding interest in health economics and in influencing public policy as it applies to the practice of pathology and laboratory medicine, including molecular pathology and genetics. He served as a technical consultant to the Harvard School of Public Health in the establishment of the Medicare physician payment system. Thereafter, for nearly a decade he was a member of the Current Procedural Terminology editorial panel. He was an early adoptor of information technology within the clinical laboratory that expanded into his current interests in medical procedural terminology, international health care terminology, and issues of health care worldwide. He was an active participant in the establishment of the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation.

This year Dr. Raslavicus is completing his term as a director of the World Association of Societies of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, as an advisor to the CPT editorial panel, and as a member of the AMA Pathology Coding Caucus, as well as his membership in the Economic Affairs Committee of the Association for Molecular Pathology. He will continue to serve as chair of a WASPaLM Committee of Liaison to governmental and professional organizations.

Dr. Raslavicus practiced community hospital pathology in the private laboratory setting and in several acute care institutions in the greater Boston area, and he was chief of laboratory medicine at University Hospital of Boston University. He continues his direct involvement in pathology as a consultant to the National Pathology Center of Lithuania and as a principal in a scholarship fund he established that sponsors resident and graduate education of Lithuanian pathologists.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Iris Schrijver, MD, for her contributions to the CAP and pathology.

Dr. Schrijver was a chair and member of the Biochemical and Molecular Genetics Resource Committee. She also served as a member of the Council on Scientific Affairs Leadership Committee, chaired the Molecular Pathology and Genetics Cluster, and acted as the cluster representative to the CSA. She is a member now of the Next-Generation Sequencing Work Group and the Genomics Strategy Advisory Group, and advisor to the Biochemical and Molecular Genetics Resource Committee. She is past president of the Association for Molecular Pathology.

Dr. Schrijver is a professor of pathology and pediatrics at Stanford University. She directs the diagnostic molecular pathology laboratory at Stanford University Medical Center and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as well as the molecular genetic pathology fellowship program. She is also associate program director for residency training in clinical pathology.