On Saturday night, November 8th, the Association of American Medical Colleges recognized something this University has long known: Lawrence Wood, M.D., Ph.D., Professor in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Section of the Department of Medicine, and former Dean of Medical Education, is one of this country's premier medical educators. The AAMC awarded Wood one of its highest honors -the Alpha Omega Alpha Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teaching Award. The Glaser Awards, meant to recognize the significant contributions to medical education made by gifted teachers, are given to a very select group of educators each year following a rigorous selection process.

Dr. Wood joined the BSD faculty in 1982 as Professor in the Department of Medicine and Director of Critical Care Medicine. Within a year, he had established the first Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. At the same time that he was building a preeminent section of talented scientists and clinicans, he was inspiring students, residents and subspecialty fellows and winning accolades for his exemplary teaching. In 1984, less than two years after arrival, Wood won the J.A. McClintock Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Medical School. At the time, the McClintock Award was the single named award and represented the highest teaching honor a Medical School faculty member could earn. In addition, each graduate Medical School class elects 20 faculty as the outstanding teachers of the year. Wood has been selected for this honor 19 consecutive times. Wood has also been slected three consecutive times as the Outstanding Basic Science Teacher in the Medical School, an award begun in the early 1990s.

Dr. Wood also made monumental contributions to Pritzker administration. In 1994 he was appointed Chair of the Task Force on Review and Revision of the Medical School Curriculum, which led to a number of innovations that ultimately appeared in published form in an Academic Medicine paper outlining the principles of vertical and horizontal integration of the curriculum. In 1996 he was appointed the Faculty Dean for Medical Education, with a major responsibility for curriculum oversight. In this position he created the Faculty Teaching Awards, Course Development Grants, and The Society of Medical Educators, a group that continues to meet quarterly to discuss current issues and challenges in medical education. In 2000 Dr. Wood was appointed Dean of Medical Education to oversee the entire process of medical education, integrating medical school admissions, students services, and curriculum.

Perhaps the most important legacy Dr. Wood created at the University of Chicago is illustrated by those he recruited to the Pulmonary and Critical Care Section he started two decades ago. For example, this section recruited more Chief Residents in the Department of Medicine into the fellowship program than any other subspecialty section. Among the first two faculty he recruited, Drs. Jesse Hall and Greg Schmidt, are coeditors with Wood of the most highly regarded textbook of Critical Care Medicine—Principles of Critical Care—now in its second edition. The total Wood legacy is perpetuated by the students he trained and the faculty he mentored. Taken together, Dr. Lawrence Wood embodies the highest Chicago ideal of a true “Teacher of Teachers.”

Collegiate Mastery
One of the University's better-kept secrets is the success of its second-largest undergraduate concentration. Second in size to economics, undergraduate biological sciences total enrollment has grown from 3,532 in 1999 to 3,799 in 2003...

Success can be Infectious
The University of Chicago has been selected as one of eight Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (RCE), an effort that includes researchers from Northwestern, Argonne National Laboratory...

Discoveries
Researchers have discovered that getting a good night's sleep does in fact improve one's ability to learn and retain information, specifically in regards to language. Daniel Margoliash, Ph.D....

Aims Updates
The New Research Building (NRB)
The Research Aims recommended that BSD upgrade research infrastructure by investing in new space additional to the IRB while simultaneously retiring inefficient space...

DEVELOPMENT
The University of Chicago Medical Center Development celebrated the end of the fiscal year after surpassing the $600 million...

EDUCATION
On Saturday night, November 8th, the Association of American Medical Colleges recognized something this University has long known: Lawrence Wood, M.D., Ph.D., Professor...

FOREFRONT
Common wisdom tells us that cold is our enemy. If generations of Moms can be believed, cold activates the cold virus, the flu virus and any number of other common ills...

ACCOLADES
Recent Awards and Grants Information for Biological Sciences Division Faculty

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Recent Recruitemnts and Appointments of Biological Sciences Division Faculty

Dollars and Sense
The BSD financial highlights for the first two months of fiscal year 2004

More News & Events