2008 Salute to Service Awards announced at Foundation Gala
13 October 2008
In 2004, the MSV Foundation announced the creation of the annual Salute to Service Awards, designed to recognize outstanding efforts that have substantially improved patient care, both locally and abroad. Salutes are extended to physicians, medical students, and Alliance members who are dedicated to creating and nurturing a caring health promotion and disease prevention environment by providing service on behalf of patients everywhere.
Winners of the 2008 Salute to Service Awards honored at the event were:
Richard N. Baylor, MD
Kilmarnock
Service to the Uninsured and Underserved
Richardson Grinnan, MD
Richmond
Service on Behalf of all Virginians
Carol S. Shapiro, MD, MBA
Woodbridge
Service to the Medical Profession
Kenneth Tuck, MD
Roanoke
Service to the International Community
Michele Nedelka, MD
Chesapeake
Service by a Medical Student or Resident
Richard N. Baylor, MD: Service to the Uninsured and Underserved
In 1992, Dr. Dick Baylor retired to the Northern Neck of Virginia after practicing internal medicine in the US Army as a Captain, another 19 years in Richmond, and 17 years in Suffolk. Legend has it he was eager to perfect his fishing. Instead, he dedicated the next 16 years of his life to serving the uninsured residents of the Northern Neck. When he saw how great the need for basic health care was in his new community, he immediately set to work to make it better. As the President of the Northern Neck Medical Association, Dr. Baylor organized the Northern Neck Health Action Group, which in turn established the Northern Neck Free Health Clinic. He then served as the clinic's first President -- and has been its Medical Director since 1997. Serving in a strictly voluntary capacity, Dr. Baylor worked in the clinic daily, served on the Board of Directors, chaired the medical committee, monitored the medical clinic processes, and dealt with all issues that arose in the clinic's delivery of health care. He stepped down as Medical Director just this month. During his amazing tenure, the Northern Neck Free Health Clinic provided more than $26 million in health care to the working poor, touching 5,400 patients and providing more than 58,000 patient visits. Clearly his gift of service impacted thousands of lives.
Richardson Grinnan, MD: Service on behalf of all Virginians
Dr. Dick Grinnan is a man who has dedicated his professional career to the pursuit of improved health outcomes through effective collaboration. Widely known as a gentleman, an innovator, and a compromise-builder, Dr. Grinnan is passionate about improving health care access, quality, and patient safety. After joining Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Virginia in 1982, he helped to create the first preferred provider organization east of the Mississippi. He was subsequently selected to serve on a number of Governors’ Commissions, including the Governor’s Advisory Board on Medicare/Medicaid, Federal Funding of State Domestic Programs, Indigent Care; and Health Care for All Virginians. He led the formation of VIPCS (Virginians Improving Patient Care & Safety), the Quality-in-Sights Hospital Incentive Program, and the Save Antibiotic Strength Initiative in Virginia. He has also served in leadership positions with the Virginia Board of Health, Virginia Health Information, the Virginia Association of Free Clinics, the Virginia Health Quality Center, the Richmond Area High Blood Pressure Center, and our very own MSV Foundation. Dr. Grinnan played a critical role in each of these organizations, and fostered a spirit of cooperation between them and what had become Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. He played such a critical role, in fact, that he tried to retire twice before his actual retirement, and was brought back each time to spearhead a wide array of partnership needs. In the words of Virginia’s Commissioner of Health, Dr. Karen Remley “ Dick is a true advocate for collaboration between all components of our health care system, with the patient always foremost in his mind.”
Carol S. Shapiro, MD: Service to the Profession
In 1998, Dr. Shapiro became the first female President of the Medical Society of Virginia in its 178 year history. Leading with distinction, she inspired other women physicians to step forward as leaders, playing an active role in the Women Physicians Section and in encouraging women to take part in the Foundation’s Physician Leadership Institute. Dr. Shapiro led countless medical and community organizations - from local and specialty medical societies, to hospital staffs, to the Virginia Health Quality Center, to the Virginia Board of Medicine, to the Prince William County United Way, to serving on the boards of the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Virginia Commonwealth University, the MSV Foundation, the Prince William Symphony, and your local homeowners' association. She is now the head of Virginia's AMA delegation and continue to be very active in politics.
Kenneth D. Tuck , MD: Service to the International Community
Dr. Ken Tuck is a tireless advocate on behalf of humankind. He has yet to meet a medical problem he didn’t want to solve, and to which he wouldn’t dedicate his service to try to fix. In 2000, he initiated the creation of Vision 2020, the American Academy of Ophthalmology Rotary Club Host Project. This program works to reduce avoidable blindness and severe visual impairment in developing nations by providing international ophthalmologists with opportunities for clinical education that will directly affect the quality of eye care and enhance the training of needed ophthalmic personnel in their countries. Dr. Tuck used his leadership within the Rotary Club and the American Academy of Ophthalmology to create this unique partnership, which just last year was awarded the American Society for Association Executives' Associations Make a Better World Award. Since its creation in 2000, 51 ophthalmologists from 31 developing nations have participated in the program and it is continuing to grow.
Michele Nedelka, MD: Service by a Medical Student or Resident
During her tenure as a medical student, Dr. Nedelka’s passion for improving health care was limitless and her energy unstoppable. As a mother of three and a former physician's assistant, she was not your typical medical student. In addition to serving as the student director on the Medical Society of Virginia Board of Directors, she also served as the AMA Region VI Alternate Delegate to the AMA's Medical Student Section. But these two demanding activities didn’t quench her need to lead her peers in advocating for health reform. Dr. Nedelka also served as the first student liaison to the Norfolk Academy of Medicine Board of Directors and as the first student participant in the Claude Moore Physician Leadership Institute. In the words of one of her nominators “Michele believes that the practice of medicine is changing drastically and that physicians must have a strong voice to advocate for the needs and rights of patients and physicians. She believes she has an opportunity and obligation to become a strong voice for medicine so that future generations of patients and physicians can benefit from a patient-centered, physician-directed healthcare system.”