PASADENA, Calif. – Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine Founding Dean and CEO Mark A. Schuster, MD, PhD, will receive two prestigious awards for his broad and sustained contributions to pediatrics and his major impact on child health. The awards will be given at the annual Pediatric Academic Societies meeting beginning May 5 in Toronto.
The first award, the Joseph W. St. Geme, Jr. Leadership Award, is given by the Federation of Pediatric Organizations to recognize a pediatrician who is a role model for others to emulate as a clinician, an educator and/or an investigator. Recipients of this award have a record of broad and sustained contributions to pediatrics that will have a major impact on child health. Most important, the award recognizes those individuals who have “created a future” within the field.
The second award is the Academic Pediatric Association’s Public Policy and Advocacy Award and is given to honor those who have truly transformed child health policy and advocacy in the United States. The award recognizes the cumulative contributions of an individual that have improved the health and well-being of infants, children and/or adolescents.
“I am extremely honored and grateful to be receiving these awards. The organizations involved with giving these awards have provided me with a professional home since I began my career. I have learned from many of the physicians who have received these awards in the past including several who have been generous mentors to me over the years,” said Dr. Schuster.
“As the founding dean of the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, I have the opportunity to work with others to help develop innovative approaches to medical education. We aim to graduate outstanding physicians who will serve as advocates for their patients and communities.” he added.
Dr. Schuster was appointed to his position as founding dean of the school of medicine in October 2017. At the school of medicine, he will lead the development of an innovative model of medical education, informed by Kaiser Permanente’s rich clinical and population data, deep community engagement, commitment to diversity and inclusion, and personalized patient-centered care.
Before his appointment at the school of medicine, he served as the William Berenberg Professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and chief of general pediatrics and vice chair for health policy in the Department of Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital since 2007; before that, he was professor of pediatrics and health services at UCLA Schools of Medicine and Public Health; and director of health promotion and disease prevention at RAND, the Santa Monica, CA, think tank.
He is past President of the Academic Pediatric Association and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
