Twenty-five Columbia physicians were recognized for outstanding patient care and inducted May 2 into the Academy of Clinical Excellence of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. All ACE inductees are full-time faculty who have served at Columbia for five or more years and exhibit exemplary patient care marked by evidence-based clinical science and deeply compassionate humanism.
Carrie Ruzal-Shapiro, chair of the ACE executive committee and professor of radiology at VP&S, welcomed attendees to the event on behalf of the ACE executive committee, and Colleen Koch, group senior vice president and chief operating officer of NewYork-Presbyterian, gave brief remarks.
The 2024 Bill Campbell Clinical Champions Symposium was delivered alongside this year's ACE class induction. Katrina Armstrong, dean of VP&S, delivered this year's lecture, titled "The Role of Academic Medicine in Driving Clinical Excellence."
In her lecture, Armstrong argued that clinical excellence is synonymous with academic medicine, relying on the spirit of inquiry and innovation to drive medicine forward.
"Creating clinical excellence isn't about what happens in a lecture hall, but the ability to teach in a clinical setting," Armstrong said. "Including our students and trainees in all we do drives our clinical excellence-their engagement that makes us think out loud, drives us to model best practices, and helps encourage humility."
Armstrong also discussed how returning to the fundamental tenets of academic medicine can help us address the current challenges in health care, such as the difficulty of collaborating across highly sub-specialized fields and the ever-increasing need for resources and technology.
"We have so much opportunity," Armstrong said. "The history of medicine has been written here, and it gives us an opportunity and an imperative to move forward with courage and take on new responsibilities. We need to push ourselves, ask how we drive quality in a new era and achieve equity in new ways. We have to find new ways to bring people together by building collaborative interdisciplinary models, making sure our systems aren't the things holding us back but making things possible."
In 2017, ACE inducted its first class of members to honor clinical faculty members who demonstrate excellence in clinical care and who spend more than half their time caring for patients and training young physicians. The new inductees were nominated and elected by their peers.
2024 ACE Inductees
- Darryl Abrams, Department of Medicine
- Karen Altmann, Department of Pediatrics
- John Ausiello, Department of Medicine
- Akinpelumi A. Beckley, Department of Rehabilitation & Regenerative Medicine
- Joshua A. Berman, Department of Psychiatry
- Charles F. Cain, Department of Anesthesiology
- Doreen E. Chung, Department of Urology
- George A. Cioffi, Department of Ophthalmology
- Comana M. Cioroiu, Department of Neurology
- Elizabeth Evans, Department of Psychiatry
- David P. Horowitz, Department of Radiation Oncology
- Jennifer H. Kuo, Department of Surgery
- Christine T. Lauren, Department of Dermatology
- Angela Lignelli, Department of Radiology
- Anil Mendiratta, Department of Neurology
- Shunichi Nakagawa, Department of Medicine
- Natalie M. Neu, Department of Pediatrics
- Cindy Neunert, Department of Pediatrics
- Michael J. Pitman, Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery
- Wilson A. Quezada, Department of Medicine
- Beth W. Rackow, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
- Maya K. Rao, Department of Medicine
- Fabrizio Remotti, Department of Pathology & Cell Biology
- Osman R. Sayan, Department of Emergency Medicine
- Christopher J. Winfree, Department of Neurological Surgery
