August 17, 2010

The Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine® (ELAM) Program for Women at Drexel University College of Medicine is proud to announce they are this year’s institutional recipient of the prestigious Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Women in Medicine Leadership Development Award. ELAM® will be presented with the award during the Women in Medicine luncheon at the AAMC annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in November.

Each year, the AAMC Women in Medicine Steering Committee chooses recipients who demonstrate evidence of extraordinary, innovative, and far-reaching contributions that benefit women striving to enhance and advance their careers in academic medicine. The director of Drexel University College of Medicine’s International Center for Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine, Diane Magrane, MD, explains, “This award recognizes a program that has touched more than 90% of U.S. medical schools and over 600 alumnae who are contributing as leaders in academic health sciences centers across the United States and Canada.”

Developed in 1993, the Women in Medicine Leadership Development Award has since recognized 16 individuals and seven medical school-based women in medicine programs. “We are extremely proud of the ELAM program and are thrilled to be among this distinguished group of award winners,” says Drexel University College of Medicine Interim President and Dean Richard V. Homan, MD.

ELAM, established in 1995, is the only in-depth national program dedicated to preparing senior women faculty at schools of medicine, dentistry, and public health to move into positions of institutional leadership. ELAM’s comprehensive, intensive curriculum embodies the traits desired in the Leadership Development Award winners. “ELAM Fellows emerge not only with new skill sets and a more sophisticated understanding of leadership, but inspired and energized,” acknowledges Dean of the School of Medicine, Provost and Executive Deputy Chancellor of University of Massachusetts Medical School, Terence R. Flotte, MD.

The ELAM program measures its own success by the success of its graduates. ELAM is extremely proud that several program Fellows have been recipients of the AAMC Leadership Development Award for Individuals, including a fellow in ELAM’s inaugural class, Deborah C. German, MD, dean for the University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine, and this year’s awardee, Roberta E. Sonnino, MD. In addition, ELAM’s founding director, Page S. Morahan, PhD, was an award recipient in 1997.

German says, “The ELAM program gave me and my fellow participants the tools, knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors to be effective in our current roles and to prepare us for futures we could not yet imagine.”

Jerry Reves, MD, emeritus dean, vice president of faculty affairs, and distinguished university professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, also attested to the influence of ELAM alumnae: “ELAM has helped each of its graduates to move to the vital center of their respective institutions, where they can demonstrate new and more diverse ways of leading, solving problems, and moving our sometimes lumbering medical schools into the 21st century.”