AMA Foundation to honor 6 with Excellence in Medicine awards

From her childhood home atop a rescue mission in Philadelphia, Jeannette E. South-Paul, MD, watched as the needy and homeless came for food and help. Her parents ran the mission, and family members lived above the center when they weren't serving hot meals and offering comfort and encouragement.

It's where Dr. South-Paul learned to care for the needy, a lesson she now passes on to medical students who provide free medical care with her at the Matilda Theiss Family Health Center in Pittsburgh. For years, the family physician has been an advocate for the underserved and minority populations, and she devotes at least two days a week treating patients at the Pittsburgh clinic.

"We've got to take care of the uninsured, and we've got to keep them close to the minds and hearts of physicians," said Dr. South-Paul, chair of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Dr. South-Paul is among six physicians who will be honored with 2007 AMA Foundation Excellence in Medicine awards at a dinner Feb. 12 in Washington, D.C.

Dr. South-Paul will receive the Pride in the Profession Award, which the foundation each year bestows upon four U.S. physicians who aid underserved groups. The other Pride winners are: general physician Lawrence P. Emberton, MD, of Edmonton, Ky.; surgeon Appannagari "Dev" GnanaDev, MD, of Colton, Calif.; and neurosurgeon Gary VanderArk, MD, of Englewood, Colo.

"It's really quite an honor. I'm quite touched by it," Dr. South-Paul said. "You don't do these things because you want to be honored. You do it because it's the right thing to do."

General surgeon Jim Radcliffe, MD, of Papua New Guinea, will receive the Dr. Nathan Davis International Award in Medicine, which honors a physician for outstanding international service. Retired internist and pulmonologist William J. Little, MD, of Racine, Wis., will be honored with the Jack B. McConnell, MD, Award for Excellence in Volunteerism.

Here's a closer look at the physicians being honored:

• Dr. GnanaDev donated money to start the free cardiac rehabilitation program at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, and worked with firefighters to create a burn institute to provide aid to burn victims.
• Dr. VanderArk in 1988 opened Doctors Care in Littleton, Colo., a program that provided affordable medical care to more than 2,500 children and 1,000 adults last year.
• Dr. Radcliffe has lived in Papua New Guinea since 1985 and is chief of staff of the 120-bed Kudjip Nazarene Hospital, where he performs surgery, delivers babies and treats burns.
• Dr. Little retired in 1989 after 35 years in medicine, then joined the board of directors of the Health Care Network Inc., which coordinates volunteers who treat low-income and uninsured patients.
• Dr. Emberton has been practicing since 1950 in the same building in rural Kentucky. He once made house calls on horseback and didn't take a sick day until Feb. 24, 1997, when he had quadruple bypass surgery.

With the closest hospital 20 miles away, Dr. Emberton has served as pediatrician, obstetrician-gynecologist and more. He loves caring for his patients and has no plans to retire.

"I don't know what I would do. I never hit a golf ball in my life," he said. "I've talked about retiring. Then the next day I come in and someone says, 'I hear you're retiring. Oh, I hope you don't because you're the only doctor I've ever been to.'

"That sort of changes your mind."