A look at the work of three award-winning internists
By Brad Dunevitz
At this year's Annual Session, ACP-ASIM honored the accomplishments of 13 internists. Here is a look at three of those award winners and their work. (See a full list of this year's award winners and new Masters)
Clinical teaching
Thirty-four years ago, three federal judges issued a summons to William J. Holloway, MACP. The summons, however, was for an appearance at a hospital, not a court.
Dr. Holloway was treating another federal judge for meningitis, and his colleagues wanted a second opinion. Dr. Holloway, who today serves as director of the infectious disease lab at Christiana Care Health System's Wilmington Hospital in Delaware, called his former professor from the University of Maryland, Theodore Woodward, MACP, a world-renowned infectious disease expert who had been Dr. Holloway's mentor as a house officer.
"The next day, everyone met at the hospital. Dr. Woodward sang my praises and said I did everything right," Dr. Holloway recalled. "The judges were overwhelmed."
Years later, Dr. Holloway still refers to the incident when teaching students, residents and young physicians. "I point out that they should always be willing to offer patients and their families a second opinion," he said. "Even if you're certain about the diagnosis, you should be willing to have someone else confirm it for you."
Dr. Holloway, a past College Governor, has devoted most of his professional life to teaching medical students and residents. The College recognized his work with students and physicians-in-training with the 1999 Outstanding Volunteer Clinical Teacher Award.
A father of six and a grandfather to 18, he has spent the last 34 years dividing his time between running a private practice and heading up Wilmington Hospital's infectious disease section and research program. Working as the only infectious disease physician at the medical center for several years, Dr. Holloway found that residents, medical students and other hospital personnel relied on him for his expertise in the field.
The son of a Methodist minister, Dr. Holloway said he either inherited or learned from his father the special skills required to teach. "Your ability as a teacher depends largely on how well you relate to your audience and how well you get your message across," he said. To keep housestaff and nurses from drifting away as it gets closer to lunch-time, he tries to add entertainment value to his teaching by calling on a keen sense of humor.
Preventive medicine
Richard P. Wenzel, FACP, one of the country's leading infectious disease epidemiologists, has spent much of his professional life trying to prevent and control hospital-acquired infections.
Dr. Wenzel, who received the James D. Bruce Memorial Award for his contributions to preventive medicine, said that each year, 35 million Americans are admitted to acute-care hospitals. Almost 10% of those individuals develop an infection that was not present or incubating when they entered the hospital. Of those 3.5 million people, about 10% contract hospital-acquired pneumonia and another 10% acquire bloodstream infections. Hospital-acquired infections are one of the leading causes of death in the United States.
Dr. Wenzel, who is professor and chairman of the department of internal medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia Campus, has designed surveillance systems to combat hospital-acquired infections. One system—the first statewide program to examine infection rates, risk factors and outcomes in Virginia hospitals—allowed him to attribute deaths directly to infections acquired in hospital rather than the underlying diseases.
In 1994, while serving as a professor of medicine at Iowa University, he designed a national surveillance system for nosocomial bloodstream infections. SCOPE—Surveillance and Control of Pathogens of Epidemiological importance—has gathered data on 15,000 hospital-acquired bloodstream infections.
"Our goal is to reduce morbidity and mortality rates and improve the quality of life for our patients," he said.
Humanities in medicine
The mission of Jock Murray, MACP, is to improve patients' quality of life by developing a balance between the humanities and the science of medicine.
"The essence of good medicine is a very strong doctor-patient relationship," said Dr. Murray, winner of the Nicholas E. Davies Memorial Scholar Award. The honor is bestowed on those who engage in scholarly activities in the humanities or the history of medicine.
Dr. Murray, a former College Regent and Chair of the Board of Regents, is professor of medical humanities at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He teaches his students—and practicing physicians—to emphasize not only the science of medicine, but also its humanistic aspect, which focuses on understanding the human condition and society through medicine's relationship with history, literature, philosophy, art and music.
"The idea is not to focus only on disease and the science of medicine," Dr. Murray explained. "It's also to become more involved and empathetic toward patients and their experiences and their families."
His students enrich their training through elective courses and summer research in the humanities. They develop theater groups in which they read and perform plays, set up music programs in the medical school and organize humanities weekends.
Dr. Murray also provides reading weekends geared toward practicing physicians and their spouses. Each spring, participants are assigned a novel, short story, poem or essay, which they read during the summer and discuss in the fall. The literature, which relates to issues that are important to physicians, teaches them about life, relationships or the human condition, he said.
"The humanities balanced with science not only provides better patient care, but enhances doctors' enjoyment of medicine, because it's a much more fulfilling and interesting way to practice medicine," he said. "Physicians who have a strong humanistic and empathetic approach to patients tend to be excited about the practice of medicine."
Brad Dunevitz is a freelance writer in Denver.
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