June 27, 2018

Resident Teaching Award

John Lee (left), Karra Jones (middle), Devin Shrock (right)

This year’s recipient of the Resident Teaching Award is Karra Jones, MD, PhD.  This award is given each year to a faculty member who displays exemplary teaching and mentoring skills while working with the residents.

When nominating her for the award, residents shared the following comments:

• "Dr. Jones is an incredibly gifted and enthusiastic teacher. She goes above and beyond what's necessary to help teach residents at the scope and is never in a rush to get through cases without in-depth, comprehensive teaching points. She helped us launch a new slide conference by identifying all neuropathology cases we use in the conference and providing examples of each case."
• "Dr. Jones is always so approachable and enthusiastic about teaching and I'm always comfortable going to her whenever I have any questions or I just need help in general."
• "Dr. Jones has infectious enthusiasm for neuropathology. Her lectures are organized in a way that is easy to follow and she provides many tips and tricks for remembering facts. Her door is always open and no matter how busy she is she always makes time to help, listen, and teach. She goes above and beyond by making sure residents are aware of learning opportunities both within the pathology department and at interdepartmental meetings. She is a joy to work with and an asset to our neuropathology department."
• "She is an excellent teacher and person. She is always available to go over cases and cares about resident education."

George D. Penick Teaching Award

Anthony Snow (left), Daniel Pelletier (right)

This year’s recipient of the George D. Penick Award is Dan Pelletier.  This award is given annually to a Pathology Resident who displays excellence in and commitment to the education and teaching of medical students, peers and clinical colleagues.

When nominating him for the award, residents shared the following comments:

• He leads two optional, early-morning conferences for residents. He has put forth enormous effort to make said conferences as beneficial as possible, and they are truly excellent sessions. He also makes the slides for the conferences freely available for anyone to review. He also has created online flashcards for AP and CP topics for boards, which he freely shares with all of us.
• Dan used our Beaker search engine, HEDI, to search for all cases (ALL CASES) displayed in the surgical pathology introductory text “The Practice of Surgical Pathology” by Diana Molavi. He then selected MULTIPLE examples of each to personally review the histology before selecting the best and most representative example of each diagnosis. He sought the help of faculty and senior residents and fellows when he was unsure of which slide to select. Then he had the blocks pulled for recuts. Then he reviewed those recuts to make sure they displayed the pertinent findings. Then he put them in the order they appear in the text. Take a second to think about the amount of time he invested for this project. Yes, others helped. But their time contributions are dwarfed by the lion’s share of the work Dan did to put this all together. He relentlessly reminded everyone about this new weekly teaching conference aimed at junior residents/review for senior residents to encourage attendance. He also led several of these conferences. In addition, we have Dan to thank for harassing Dr. Jensen into using his education funds to purchase the California Tissue Tumor Registry (CTTR) slide sets. Two of them. 320 cases. These are used to supplement cases brought by residents to the Thursday morning conferences or “interesting case conference.” They are challenging and often provide material to which we otherwise would not be exposed until we accidentally stumbled upon them in the real world (i.e. telangiectatic osteosarcoma). In short – he is a champion and truly deserves this award.
• When I was on autopsy with him, Dan would offer to show me the slides from the cases we did together. No other resident actively sought me out to show me what s/he found on histology. I really appreciated Dan’s efforts to follow up. There have been times when I haven’t been on rotation with Dan, but I can ask him questions as he walks through the surg path room and he will always offer take time out of his day to sit down with me, go over the slide, and teach. Dan’s enthusiasm for pathology and teaching have played a large role in me considering pathology as a career. I cannot recommend him more highly for this teaching award.

Megan C. Danton Award

Devin Shrock (left), Terry Anderson (middle), John Lee (right)

This year’s recipient of the Megan C. Danton award is Terry Anderson, DCC. The Danton award is presented annually by Pathology Residents to a laboratory staff member for exemplifying excellence and dedication in teaching laboratory medicine.

When nominating him for the award, residents shared the following comments:

• “Terry Anderson is loved by trainees in the pathology department. Residents enjoy working with Terry not only because he is approachable and friendly, but also because he is an excellent teacher. Terry is an expert in his field and shares that knowledge with trainees in an open and low stress manner. Rather than simply assist, Terry actively teaches residents on each and every case, anticipating the technical errors that may be encountered and offering guidance to help avoid them. In addition to benefiting from his years of experience working in the Decedent Care Center, resident also benefit from Terry's prior work experience in the funeral services industry. The insight that he can provide about the system that families must navigate after the death of a loved one is invaluable to the trainees. Knowledge of this system has helped residents better serve our patients' families.”
• “Terry is the definition of going above and beyond. His assistance during autopsies was seemingly catered to the prosector’s experience; he seemed to know how long to let us struggle before jumping in to help, and would take over parts of the dissection he knew we had mastered already in order to help speed up the process. He would take opportunities to teach where he could, which was great given the many years of experience he has. Terry is also a fantastic colleague to be around; always seemingly upbeat when the rest of us might be down-trodden on busy weeks. Terry is highly deserving of this recognition!”
• “Terry Andersen is an irreplaceable asset to residents in the Decedent Care Center. Terry’s prior experience as funeral director has given him valuable knowledge about his profession that translates when he is teaching residents during autopsy cases. Terry’s approachability and uplifting attitude make prosecting enjoyable. Terry will be your biggest cheerleader when on service and you can tell he truly cares about the education of trainees.”