UC College of Medicine Awards 3 With Drake Medals

CINCINNATI—The University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine has named one researcher and two physicians as 2012 Daniel Drake Medal recipients.

Robin Cotton, MD, Sheldon Greenfield, MD, and Stephen Woods, PhD, were presented with their medals at the college’s annual honors day ceremony, Sunday, May 20, and were honored again that evening at a reception at the Queen City Club.

College of Medicine Dean Thomas Boat, MD, called the honorees role models for new graduates and said he looks forward to the day when "members of the Class of 2012 are recognized as recipients of the Drake Medal.”

The Daniel Drake Medal was first awarded in 1985 during the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the UC College of Medicine’s founder, pioneering physician Daniel Drake. The award, considered to be the highest honor bestowed by the College of Medicine, is given annually to honor distinguished living faculty and alumni.

2012 Drake Medal Recipients

Robin Cotton, MD

Originally from England, Robin Cotton, MD, has been director of the Division of Pediatric Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center since 1973. He has built the world’s premier center for the diagnosis and treatment of airway abnormalities. Cotton was instrumental in developing the Airway Management Unit, which has evolved into the Aerodigestive Sleep Center, which is now at the forefront of the multidisciplinary approach to management for children with complex airway disorders.

Pediatric otolaryngology has become one of the busiest surgical subspecialties at Cincinnati Children’s, with nearly 33,000 outpatient visits and 11,143 procedures annually. The division was the first to utilize Cincinnati Children’s satellite facilities.

Cotton earned his medical degree from the University of Cambridge and completed a head and neck fellowship at the University of Cincinnati in 1972-73. A UC professor of otolaryngology, Cotton has been an invited speaker to many national and international functions each year. Because of his reputation, 70 percent of his patients requiring airway surgery are from outside the Tristate. Together, he and his colleagues have developed a world-renowned program to treat primary and specialized ear, nose and throat problems, including swallowing disorders, speech disorders and cochlear implants.

Named one of the Best Doctors in the United States in 1998, Cotton and his staff have built an international reputation for the treatment of hearing and aerodigestive conditions in children.

Sheldon Greenfield, MD

Sheldon Greenfield, MD, is an internationally recognized leader in quality of care and health services research. Greenfield is the Donald Bren Professor of Medicine and executive co-director of the Health Policy Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine.

Greenfield received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1960 and his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1964.

Through highly innovative research, Greenfield has been an initiator and thought leader in such important areas of medicine as primary care outcomes, quality of chronic disease care, comparative effectiveness research and patient participation in care. His impact on health care improvement set in motion an entire field of health systems research and interventions to change outcomes. He was the 1995 recipient of the Pew Health Professions Award for lifetime achievement in Primary Care Research.

Greenfield is a recipient of the Glaser Award of the Society of General Internal Medicine and the 1999 Novartis Global Outcomes Leadership Award. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1996 and was chair of the IOM report "Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition.” He was also chair of the National Diabetes Quality Improvement Alliance.

In 2011, Greenfield was co-chair of the IOM Committee on Comparative Effectiveness Research Prioritization. He was also chair of a 2011 IOM Committee on Standards for Developing Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines. Greenfield is current chair of the National Quality Forum (NQF) Advisory Panel for Diabetes and Chronic Kidney Disease, and is a member of the NQF Outcomes Steering Committee.

Stephen Woods, PhD

Stephen Woods, PhD, who joined UC as a professor of psychiatry and adjunct professor of medicine and neuroscience in 1998, studies the neurobiology of food intake, obesity, drug tolerance and addiction. He and colleagues created UC’s Obesity Research Center, with Woods as director. Now professor emeritus, Woods maintains an active and well-funded research lab and serves as a vice chair of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience.

Woods completed all of his undergraduate training at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, as well as a PhD jointly in the departments of psychology and of physiology and biophysics. Upon completion, Woods joined Columbia University as an assistant professor of psychology and adjunct assistant professor of medicine. After three years, he returned to UW and quickly moved up the ranks to professor and held the offices of chair of psychology, associate dean for research of the graduate school, and vice provost for research. He was also named UW’s "Most Distinguished Teacher.”

Woods has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1971, and received a prestigious NIH MERIT award in the 1990s. A standing member and chair of several NIH study sections, he has published nearly 500 original scholarly articles, which have been collectively cited over 20,000 times.

Woods has been an official mentor for nearly 50 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and has served as president of the International Congress for the Physiology of Food and Fluid Intake, member of the board of the Obesity Society and president of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB). He has held numerous named lectureships and given seminars at nearly 100 institutions around the world. He will deliver the 2012 Erlanger Lecture for the American Physiological Society and will receive the 2012 Most Distinguished Career Award from SSIB.