CAP16: All-star team presented with CAP and Foundation awards

 

October 2016—Gene N. Herbek, MD, was presented Sept. 25 with the Pathologist of the Year award during the spotlight event at the CAP16 annual meeting in Las Vegas.

At the same event, Cordelia E. Sever, MD, was given the Pathology Advancement award, Sang Wu, MD, the CAP Foundation Gene and Jean Herbek Humanitarian award, Carey Zimmerman August, MD, the Outstanding Communicator award, and Denise K. Driscoll, MS, MT(ASCP)SBB, the CAP Staff Outstanding Achievement award.

Twenty-four others received CAP or CAP Foundation awards Sept. 24 during a joint session of the House of Delegates and Residents Forum or Sept. 25 during the scientific plenary session.

Dr. Herbek, of the Methodist Hospital in Omaha, Neb., was honored for his strong leadership during his term as CAP president and for his other contributions to the CAP and the CAP Foundation. He served in the House of Delegates and on the Finance, Investment, Risk Management, Practice Management, and New in Practice committees in addition to serving on other teams and many years on the Board of Governors as a governor and officer. Dr. Herbek is the founder and driving force behind the CAP Foundation’s See, Test & Treat program.

Becoming a member volunteer of the CAP made him a better pathologist, “creating countless opportunities—some formal and others back-of-the-napkin—to learn the science and art of pathology from giants in our field,” he said in his published note of acceptance of the award.

“The CAP epitomizes the model of a professional organization whose members have come together to focus on a greater purpose: in our case, improving patient care as only we can,” he added.

Dr. Sever’s Pathology Advancement award is for her ability to adapt to new changes in pathology and the challenges that come with them. She has been the chair of the CAP 15189 (ISO Program and Accreditation) Committee, a member of the Council on Accreditation and the Strategic Management Committee, and chair of the Guideline Expert Panel for Bone Marrow Synoptic Reporting for Hematologic Neoplasms. She is now a member of the International Venture Steering Committee and co-chair of the Guideline Expert Panel for Improving the Diagnosis of Lymphoma.

Dr. Sever is vice president and director of clinical pathology at Pathology Associates of Albuquerque in New Mexico, medical director of Presbyterian Hospital Laboratory and Presbyterian Branch Labs, and co-medical director of the clinical laboratory, hematology, at Tricore Reference Laboratories.

Dr. Wu’s Gene and Jean Herbek Humanitarian award is to support his vision to expand the See, Test & Treat program to reach more patients and emphasize follow-up care. His aim is to create a community health/patient navigator program, in partnership with the Vietnamese Health Professionals Association (VHPA) of North Texas and the Vietnamese American Medical Association (VAMA). He plans to create a part-time position for a community health worker who will hold workshops and seminars in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and serve as the patient navigator for follow-up care for participating patients. Dr. Wu hopes that a community health worker will be able to expand the program by using the support of the VHPA and VAMA, developing relationships with patients, and acting as a liaison between the program providers and the community.

He is a pathologist with North Dallas Pathology Services and medical director for laboratory services at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Denton. He is vice chair of the CAP’s Practice Management Committee and a member of the Steering Committee of the CAP House of Delegates. Dr. Wu recently sponsored the first See, Test & Treat program in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Dr. August received the Outstanding Communicator award for her efforts in making the value of pathology a professional priority. She has received CAP Spokesperson and Engaged Leadership Academy training and has served as an Engaged Leadership Academy training instructor. Dr. August is a member of the Engaged Leaders Network and serves as chair of the Professional and Community Engagement Committee and as a member of the Council on Membership and Professional Development.

She is an attending pathologist at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where she is director of anatomic pathology and associate chair of the Department of Pathology. She is a member also of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Denise Driscoll’s Staff Outstanding Achievement award is for her positive impact in support of the CAP and its members. For the past 12 years, Driscoll has been involved in laboratory accreditation and regulatory affairs, for which she serves as the senior director. She contributes to the success and overall management of the CAP’s accreditation programs and has worked to establish the core processes by which more than 7,800 laboratories are inspected and accredited.

Other awards presented are as follows:

Distinguished Patient Care award, to Kathleen G. Beavis, MD, for her contributions to the CAP—through her service in various roles on the Microbiology Resource Committee, Safety Committee, and Council on Scientific Affairs—that led to improved patient care.

Dr. Beavis was instrumental in establishing a partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Association of Public Health Laboratories to create the CAP Laboratory Preparedness Exercise, which strengthens a laboratory’s ability to recognize possible bioterrorism organisms. She recently moderated the American Hospital in Dubai’s annual microbiology program and presented lectures on best practices in laboratory quality improvement for microbiology.

She is a member of the Microbiology Resource and Complaints and Investigations committees.
Dr. Beavis is a pathologist at the University of Chicago. She is director of its microbiology and immunology laboratories, director of the serum protein electrophoresis service, and interim director of the clinical laboratories. She is an associate professor of pathology, University of Chicago School of Medicine.

Distinguished Patient Care award, to Meenakshi Singh, MD, for her contributions to patient care in the area of personalized medicine with a focus on biomarkers for cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. She is the CAP liaison to the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers and a member of the Pathology Practice Guidance Action Group. She has also served as a state commissioner for Colorado and Wyoming for the Commission on Laboratory Accreditation.

Dr. Singh is a pathologist at the University of Kansas Hospital, where she is the clinical service chief. She is a professor in and chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

Outstanding Service award, to Jonathan L. Myles, MD, for his years of service in support of the CAP’s advocacy program. He serves as a member of the CAP’s House of Delegates, the Council on Government and Professional Affairs, and the AMA/CAP Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement Pathology Workgroup. He has been a member of the Economic Affairs Committee since 2006 and now serves as its chair.

Dr. Myles is a pathologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, where he holds an appointment in the Department of Anatomic Pathology.

Distinguished Service Award, to Karl V. Voelkerding, MD, for his expertise and service to the CAP and the specialty as chair of the Next-Generation Sequencing Project Team and in the subsequent development of the CAP’s first NGS proficiency testing program.

Dr. Voelkerding is a professor of pathology at the University of Utah and medical director for genomics and bioinformatics at ARUP Laboratories. He is the program director for the molecular genetic pathology fellowship at the University of Utah.

Public Service award, to Diana M. Cardona, MD, for her work in leading the way for pathologists to participate in the evolving payment paradigms. She serves on the CAP Economic Affairs Committee and is chair of the EAC measure and performance assessment subcommittee. Dr. Cardona is also a member of the Council on Government and Professional Affairs, a member of the Accountable Care Organization Network, and an alternate CAP delegate to the AMA-convened Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement.

Dr. Cardona is an associate professor of pathology at Duke University School of Medicine and medical director of the histology immunopathology laboratories, medical director of the pathologist assistant program, and chief of the bone and soft tissue pathology section.

Resident Advocate award, posthumously to Joseph Allan Tucker, MD, for his contributions to and support of pathology residents. Dr. Tucker was often described as someone who made pathology fun and entertaining and as a brilliant teacher who inspired medical students to choose pathology as a career. He introduced many young leaders to organized medicine.

His students and residents selected him for many honors, among them Best Basic Science Professor, Best Senior Rotation, and a Faculty Recognition award for best pathology house staff teacher. The University of South Alabama College of Medicine class of 2016 selected Dr. Tucker as the faculty member who demonstrated excellence in clinical care, leadership, compassion, and dedication to service. Senior medical students have honored him with the red sash, a graduation honor for teaching excellence.

He was the Louise Lenoir Locke professor and chair of the Department of Pathology and director of anatomic pathology at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. He stepped down in August 2015 and died of cancer on March 23, 2016.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Hector C. Aldape, MD, for his service to the CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program. He served for nine years as deputy regional commissioner for Central and South American laboratories for the Commission on Laboratory Accreditation, during which time he led inspections for 25 to 30 labs throughout Latin America. He credits C. Robert Baisden, MD, and the late William Hamlin, MD, for inspiring his accreditation work.

Dr. Aldape spent most of his professional life as a pathologist at Northwest Hospital in Seattle, now a part of the University of Washington health system. Until 1998, he served as director of the Department of Anatomic Pathology. He taught clinical pathology at the University of Washington Medical School, where he now holds the position of emeritus clinical professor in its Department of Pathology.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Daniel J. Brat, MD, PhD, for his service to the CAP and his contributions to advancing the practice of neuropathology. For 10 years he has been a member of the CAP Neuropathology Committee, for which he served as chair from 2012 through 2015 and vice chair from 2009 through 2011. He has served as chair of the CAP’s Anatomic Pathology Cluster, Central Nervous System Biomarker Reporting Panel, and Neurological Cancer Protocol Review Panel, and he was a member of the Neurologic and Eye Tumors Cancer Protocol Panel.

Dr. Brat is a diagnostic neuropathologist at Emory University Hospital and director of the Division of Neuropathology at Emory University School of Medicine.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Desiree A. Carlson, MD, for her contributions to the CAP as northeast regional commissioner for the Commission on Laboratory Accreditation for the past 25 years, and much more. She is the chair of the Complaints and Investigations Committee, a member of the Council on Accreditation, a member of the review groups for the team leader and cytopathology checklists, and a member of the Engaged Leadership Network. Dr. Carlson has also contributed her time and expertise as a member of the CAP Foundation Board of Directors and the Finance, Political Action, and Nominating committees.

She is chief of pathology and president of Carlson Pathology Associates in Brockton, Mass., and an adjunct assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Joan E. Etzell, MD, for her service to the CAP. She has made many contributions through her work on the Hematology/Clinical Microscopy Resource Committee, of which she is the former chair and vice chair and is now the committee’s advisor. Dr. Etzell is part of the Pathology and Laboratory Quality Center workgroup on acute leukemia, a contributor to the new edition of the Color Atlas of Hematology now in development, and an instructor in CAP meeting workshops and other educational activities.

She is vice president and medical director for Sutter Health Shared Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Vinay Kumar, MBBS, MD, for his contributions to medical education and his seminal research contributions that have advanced the specialty. The focus of his research has been the cellular and molecular biology of natural killer cells. His laboratory discovered in 1999 that mutations in the human perforin gene give rise to familial hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, which led to the development of a clinical test for the disease.

Dr. Kumar was a pathology course director at Boston University and UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He is the senior editor/author of Robbins Pathologic Basis of Disease and Robbins Basic Pathology. He is involved now in developing new curricular models that employ technology for education.

Dr. Kumar is the Alice Hogge and Arthur A. Baer distinguished service professor and chair of the Department of Pathology at the University of Chicago.

Lifetime Achievement award, to Kailash B. Sharma, MD, for his service to the CAP. He has served in the House of Delegates, on the Commission on Laboratory Accreditation, and as chair of the Inspection Process Committee. He was the Gulf regional commissioner for five years. He is now a member of the International Venture Steering Committee and the Council on Accreditation and is the deputy international commissioner for Europe. Dr. Sharma helped bring laboratory best practices to India through the accreditation process.

He is the laboratory director for University Hospital in Augusta, Ga., and part of the clinical faculty at the Medical College of Georgia. He is also a medical examiner in Richmond County.

Laboratory Improvement Programs Service award, to William J. Castellani, MD, for his contributions to the programs. He is the interregional commissioner for the Commission on Laboratory Accreditation, chair of the Standards Committee, and a member of the Council on Accreditation. He serves on work groups for quality management in the clinical laboratory and is a former chair, vice chair, and advisor to the CAP 15189 Committee.

Dr. Castellani is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State Hershey College of Medicine.

Laboratory Accreditation Program Service award, to Stephen J. Sarewitz, MD, for his contributions and extensive service to the CAP’s accreditation program. He served on the Council on Accreditation as vice chair and on the Commission on Laboratory Accreditation as vice chair, chair of its Checklists Committee, checklist commissioner, special commissioner for complaint investigations, northwest regional commissioner, and Washington state commissioner, among other positions. Dr. Sarewitz is a past member of the CAP Board of Governors.

He is a member of the honorary medical staff at Valley Medical Center in Renton, Wash.

Excellence in Teaching award, to Richard M. Scanlan, MD, for his contributions in developing and presenting CAP inspector training and laboratory management education. He serves as an instructor for the Laboratory Medical Direction Advanced Practical Pathology Program (AP3) course and has been responsible for its compliance and accreditation modules since 2013.

Dr. Scanlan is chair of the Commission on Laboratory Accreditation.

He is a professor of pathology at Oregon Health and Science University.

Excellence in Education award, to Walter H. Henricks, MD, for his leadership, expertise, and influence in informatics education, especially in his support and advocacy of the CAP CME and GME programs.

Dr. Henricks has been instrumental in helping to define a strategy for clinical informatics that included direction for informatics education, priorities for CME education, and alignment with CAP strategic initiatives related to advancing the specialty. He led informatics-related education, including integrating informatics concepts into scientific courses at the CAP annual meeting as the education and accreditation subcommittee chair of the Informatics Committee. Dr. Henricks is also co-leader for collaboration among the Association of Pathology Chairs, the Association for Pathology Informatics, and the CAP in defining, developing, and implementing an informatics curriculum for residents.

He is a member of the Clinical Informatics Steering Committee and the Council on Accreditation and is vice chair of the Informatics Committee.

Dr. Henricks is vice chair of the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Institute and medical director for the Center for Pathology Informatics, both at the Cleveland Clinic.

CAP Foundation Leadership Development award, to Jordan E. Baum, MD, for her interest in health care policy reform and her goal to educate herself at the CAP Policy Meeting. She is a junior member and Residents Forum delegate and chief resident in her fourth year of her anatomic and clinical pathology residency at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital at Weill Cornell Medicine.

CAP Foundation Leadership Development award, to David A. Cohen, MD, for his interest in educating himself on becoming an advocate for pathology. He will attend the 2017 CAP Policy Meeting. Dr. Cohen is a junior member of the CAP Graduate Medical Education and Residents Forum Executive committees. He is in an anatomic pathology/clinical pathology residency at Houston Methodist Hospital.

CAP Foundation Leadership Development award, to Benjamin Cook, MD, for his plans to share with his peers in the Residents Forum the lessons and skills he has learned in his military pathology career and to learn from others in the Forum about leadership challenges and opportunities in pathology. He will begin teaching in his military leadership program. Dr. Cook, who has achieved the rank of captain, is a pathology resident at Madigan Army Medical Center in Fort Lewis, Wash.

CAP Foundation Leadership Development award, to Daniel S. Herman, MD, PhD, for his desire to further his understanding of the policies and regulations affecting pathology. He is the junior member on the Council on Government and Professional Affairs. At the time of the 2016 CAP Policy Meeting, which he attended, Dr. Herman was a third-year resident in clinical pathology at the University of Washington. He is now an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

CAP Foundation Leadership Development award, to Andrea Pervine-Zaman Ho, MD, for her desire to improve resident training by collaborating with her peers in the Residents Forum. She is a third-year resident at Truman Medical Center of the University of Missouri–Kansas City.

CAP Foundation Leadership Development award, to Sarmad Hassan Jassim, MD, for his desire to develop his interpersonal and leadership skills and to educate his department on topics covered at the CAP Policy Meeting. He is a resident at MetroHealth Medical Center at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

CAP Foundation Leadership Development award, to Rebecca C. Obeng, MD, PhD, MPH, for her commitment to learning and expanding on her leadership and advocacy skills at the CAP Policy and Residents Forum meetings. She is a resident at Emory University Hospital.

CAP Foundation Leadership Development award, to Amy Thommasen, MD, for her dedication to learning new ways to improve patient care and to bringing more focus on laboratory specialties in medical education. She attended the Residents Forum meeting in Las Vegas. She is a fourth-year and chief resident at the University of Calgary in Canada.
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The following CAP staff and members received President’s Honors on Sept. 26:

Natasha H. Brinker, for making the CAP’s transition from FedEx to UPS a smooth one for international customers.

Scott Brinker, for his technical skill in managing the CAP’s security applications.

Rajesh C. Dash, MD, for his passion for “normalizing” and “mainstreaming” the CAP’s IT infrastructure.

Charles Fiegl, for his advocacy work.

Carrie A. Glas, for her work on the transition to use of UPS.

Jaimie M. Halley, for playing a central role in the delivery to market of next-generation sequencing programs as part of the CAP Surveys.

Shannon W. Hoekstra, for his technical infrastructure leadership and skill.

Richard E. Horowitz, MD, for his commitment to the CAP and the specialty.

Andrew E. Horvath, MD, for his perspective, enthusiasm, input, and role in what the CAP has become.

Katherine Jedlicka, for her market analysis and its part in the success of the CAP’s Laboratory Improvement Programs.

Yuan Liu, for her work in keeping the CAP up to date on international requirements and the changing landscape.

Raouf E. Nakhleh, MD, for leading the charge to instill in anatomic pathologists the belief and reliance on QC and QA.

David A. Novis, MD, for his passion for QA and for improving and defining the role of the House of Delegates.

James Orheim, for raising the status of the CAP’s marketing programs and establishing an integrated marketing capability.

Vahe H. Ovassapian, for his dedication during a time of much change in the CAP’s customer contact center.

John D. Pfeifer, MD, PhD, for his leadership in the evolution and deployment of next-generation sequencing at the CAP and Washington University.

Jane M. Shlaes, for 2015 Leader Lab, a professional staff leadership development experience.

Karim E. Sirgi, MD, MBA, for his commitment to advancing pathology.

Paul N. Valenstein, MD, for his valued service to the CAP.

Patricia Vasalos, for her leadership role in SPOT/Dx.

Elizabeth A. Wagar, MD, for her decades-long contributions to the CAP.

David A. Willis, for his leadership in connection with a malware incident and his role in managing Oracle software licensing arrangements.