As the founding dean of UT MD Anderson Cancer Center School of Health Professions, one of the proudest moments in my academic career was announcing the names of graduates at the School's first commencement.
The proudest moments of my career are when my wife and colleague, Dr. Karen Szauter, and I were inducted into the UTMB Academy of Master Teachers and UT Academy of Health Science Education.
A merely intelligent and technically skilled physician without a calibrated moral compass is not only worthless but dangerous. Our obligation is to help calibrate that compass from the first to the last day of training, and beyond, for all of our trainees and colleagues.
Proudest moment of my career? Receiving the Distinguished Clinical Science Educator Award from UTSW in 2008–2009.
I am proudest when I see the amazing accomplishments of those whom I have taught.
The proudest moment of my career? I hope it’s yet to come!
In November, 2002, despite having a case of pneumonia, I was giving a scheduled lecture to the medical students in the Medical Biochemistry class. I began the lecture and then collapsed with a seizure. The next thing I remember I was in the hospital, where I stayed for six days. While there, the students sent me a very nice get-well card. Reading those very kind and loving messages was one of the proudest moments of my teaching career.
One of the proudest moments of my career was receiving a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse to conduct a Stage 1 Trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction for individuals in treatment program for substance use disorders. Students have been involved in all aspects of this interesting line of inquiry.
One of the proudest moments of my career was when I was elected President of our national professional association, the American Society of Clinical Laboratory Science. Since I was in college and attended my first local meeting as a student, I was in awe of the professionals who served this organization and never dreamed that one day I would have the honor of serving as its president.
My life has been a happy and satisfying experience, a rich blend of personal and professional high points. First, my marriage, births of three children and eleven grandchildren constitute a “continuum” of proudest personal moments. As a counterpoint, the two high points of my professional career were receiving a Minnie Stevens Piper Professorship.
The proudest moments of my career are being awarded the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Award; being named the Bertha and Robert Bucksch Distinguished Professor of Aging, being awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and being elected to the Academy of Health Science Education.
My proudest moment was the recognition that my third- and fourth-year clinical students gave me when I was serving as a Team Leader at the Dental Branch.
The proudest moments of my career are when an educational initiative I have championed at my school, such as problem-based learning, becomes a reality!
Few jobs offer keener rewards than helping people flourish. I’ve been lucky to have three of them: teacher, parent, clinician.
MD Anderson has a system of awards for Faculty Achievement that I helped create when I was the first Chair of MD Anderson’s Faculty Senate from 1991–1993. I am very proud that system continues today during our annual Faculty Honors Convocation and that I myself was recognized by my faculty peers with the Faculty Achievement Award in Education in 1994.
My proudest moment? Giving my Presidential address to AAI, being elected to the NAS and receiving a Teaching award all on the same day.