UC Honors Two Pediatricians with Drake Medals

An authority on pediatric gastroenterology and a renowned pediatric orthopedic surgeon have been awarded the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine’s highest honor.

Daniel Drake medals were given to William Balistreri, MD, professor of pediatrics and internal medicine at UC and medical director for the Pediatric Liver Care Center and the pediatric liver transplant program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and to Alvin Crawford, MD, professor of orthopedics and pediatrics at UC and director of the Spine Center at Cincinnati Children’s.

Both were recognized at a dinner Saturday, May 27, and again at the College of Medicine’s Honors Day (graduation) celebration, Sunday, May 28, at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinnati.

The Daniel Drake Medal recognizes distinguished living faculty or alumni who have made outstanding or unique contributions to medical education, scholarship or research. The award commemorates the frontier physician who founded Cincinnati's original medical school in 1819.

William Balistreri, MD
One of the world’s foremost authorities on pediatric gastroenterology and liver disease, Dr. Balistreri earned his medical degree at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine in 1970. He was a pediatric resident at Cincinnati Children’s from 1971 to 1972 and a postdoctoral fellow from 1972 to 1974. He did a research fellowship in the gastroenterology division at the Mayo Clinic before being appointed assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1976.

Dr. Balistreri joined Cincinnati Children’s in 1978 and was also named associate professor of pediatrics at UC College of Medicine. In 1984 he was appointed Dorothy M. M. Kersten Professor of Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s and in 1991 became professor of medicine at UC. 

Author of over 400 publications, including original articles, editorials, reviews and book chapters, Dr. Balistreri has been listed multiple times in “Best Doctors in America.” In 2000 he became the first pediatrician president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. He has held office in or is a member of numerous scholarly societies, including the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition. In 2001 he received the Outstanding Pediatrician Award from the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

Dr. Balistreri’s honors include the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America (1995), the Andrew Sass-Kortsak Memorial Award from the Canadian Liver Foundation and the Canadian Association for the Study of Liver (1998), the Murray Davidson Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Gastroenterology and Nutrition (1999) and the Shwachman Award (1999) from the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.

He is editor of The Journal of Pediatrics, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition and coeditor of the prestigious text “Liver Disease in Children.”

Alvin Crawford, MD

Director of the Cincinnati Children's Spine Center and UC professor of orthopedics and pediatrics, Dr. Crawford was the first African-American graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine. He started his residency in orthopedics at the Boston (Chelsea) Naval Hospital and completed it at the combined Harvard University Orthopedic Program as a navy-sponsored resident. He completed fellowship training in pediatric orthopedic surgery at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston and taught gross anatomy at Harvard Medical School. He held another pediatric orthopedic fellowship at the Alfred I. DuPont Institute in Wilmington, Del., in 1974. His training also included postgraduate reconstructive surgery of the hip under world-renowned hip surgeon Otto Aufranc, MD.

Dr. Crawford was chief of pediatric orthopedics at the San Diego Naval Hospital from 1971 to 1975 and senior associate surgeon at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit from 1975 to 1977. He was a Carl Berg Traveling Fellow of the Orthopedic Research and Education Foundation in 1972.

Since joining the staff of Cincinnati Children’s in 1977, Dr. Crawford has completed a teaching module in pediatric orthopedics, which includes a 1,000-slide and syllabus packet widely used as a teaching instrument in the United States and 33 other countries. He personally has trained 40 fellows in pediatric orthopedic surgery.

He has coauthored a handbook of pediatric orthopedics for pediatric house officers and primary-care physicians and assisted in the development and publication of an atlas on pediatric orthopedic radiology. He has also authored a monograph on neurofibromatosis in children, a field in which he is considered the leading expert and has achieved international status. His publications include more than 237 articles and abstracts, six books and 53 chapters. His visiting professorships, in addition to those in the United States, include appointments in Canada, West Africa, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Brazil, Colombia, England, Belgium, Chile, Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Ireland, Scotland, Finland, France, Panama and Japan.

Dr. Crawford has received numerous awards and has held office in many professional organizations.

In August 2004, Dr. Crawford was honored with the dedication of the Alvin H. Crawford, MD, Chair in Pediatric Orthopedics at Cincinnati Children’s and was recently presented with the Founder’s Award by the Cincinnati Pediatric Society.