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Award aims to boost physician mentors

The Joy McCann Foundation gives four physicians $150,000 each for excellence in mentoring.

By Myrle Croasdale, amednews staff. Nov. 3, 2003.

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Flush with a $150,000 windfall, what would you do? Travel to Paris? Buy a convertible? Not these doctors. The four winners of the newly created McCann Scholars award have more practical plans in mind.

The Joy McCann Foundation, a private family foundation that supports excellence in medical and nursing education, research and patient care, academic achievement in student athletes, and the visual and performing arts, selected four physicians to honor as mentors in October, giving each $150,000 with no strings attached.

The award, which will now be given annually, is meant to reward the mentoring aspect of teaching in science and medicine.

One of the award recipients is already planning to give her money away.

"I hope this will call attention to how important mentoring in medicine is," said Robert Daugherty, MD, co-chair of the foundation. "I think many of us ... underestimate our role as role models and mentors."

The winners this year are: Rosanne Leipzig, MD, PhD, professor and vice chair for education, Dept. of Geriatrics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York; James Mitchell, MD, president of the Neuropsychiatric Research Institute and professor and chair of the Neuroscience Dept. at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Fargo, ND; Kelley Skeff, MD, PhD, professor and associate chair for education, Dept. of Medicine, Stanford (Calif.) University Medical Center; and Marjorie Smith, MD, professor and chair, Dept. of Pathology, Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.