Upstate Medical University: Upstate To Award Three With Honorary Degrees At Commencement

Syracuse NY

30 April, 2022

1:47 PM

Description

Press release from Upstate Medical University: April 24, 2022 Upstate Medical University will present honorary degrees to three individuals who have made substantial contributions in areas of importance to Upstate, including social justice, equity, clinician wellness and evidence-based practice The three honorees are Vanessa Northington Gamble, MD, PhD, Bernadette Melnyk, PhD, and Tait Shanafelt, MD. Each will receive a doctor of science degree from the State University of New York. The degrees will be presented at the Upstate's Commencement Sunday, May 1 at 1 p.m. at Upstate Medical University Arena, 515 Montgomery St., Syracuse. Their nominations were supported by Upstate's campus Honorary Degree Committee, the State University of New York's Honorary Degree Committee, and the State University of New York Chancellor and Board of Trustees. The 2022 honorary degree recipients are: Vanessa Northington Gamble, MD, PhD Vanessa Northington Gamble, MD, PhD, is University Professor of Medical Humanities at the George Washington University, the first woman and first African American to hold this prestigious, endowed faculty position. She is also Professor of Health Policy in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences and Professor of American Studies in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Gamble has held positions as Vice President for Community and Minority Programs at the Association of American Medical Colleges, Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Center for Health Disparities Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Director of the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care. Throughout her career Gamble has worked to promote equity and justice in American medicine and public health. A physician, scholar, and activist, she is an internationally recognized expert on the history of race and American medicine, racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care, and bioethics. She is the author of several widely acclaimed publications on the history of race and racism in American medicine, including the award-winning Making a Place for Ourselves: The Black Hospital Movement: 1920-1945. Public service has been a hallmark of Gamble's career. She chaired the committee that took the lead role in the successful campaign to obtain an apology in 1997 from President Clinton for the infamous United States Public Health Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. Gamble's many honors include membership to the National Academy of Medicine and the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and election as a Fellow of the Hastings Center. She is the 2021 recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Award from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Bernadette Melnyk, PhD Bernadette Melnyk, PhD, APRN-CNP, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN, is Vice President for Health Promotion and University Chief Wellness Officer, the Helene Fuld Health Trust Professor of Evidence-based Practice (EBP), and Dean of the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University. She is professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Ohio State's College of Medicine and Executive Director of the Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute of EBP. She is a globally recognized expert in EBP, intervention research, child, teen and young adult mental health, and health and wellness, and is a frequent keynote speaker at national and international conferences. This press release was produced by Upstate Medical University. The views expressed here are the author's own.