Each year, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recognizes colleagues and organizations that are pursing excellence and creating value in better serving their communities and advancing the health of the nation.
On November 2nd at the 2013 AAMC Awards Dinner, Arnold P. Gold, MD and Sandra O. Gold, Ed.D, founders of The Arnold P. Gold Foundation, received a Special Recognition Award for their exceptional leadership in promoting humanism in American medicine.
Today, students and faculty at 94% of American medical schools participate in at least one Gold Foundation program. During the past 20 years, The Foundation’s White Coat Ceremony, has become a rite of passage that is now a tradition in medical education. Designed to welcome new students into the medical profession and to set clear expectations regarding the primacy of patients by professing an oath, the White Coat Ceremony now takes place at almost every American school of medicine and osteopathy as well as in 17 other nations.
In accepting the award, Dr. Arnold Gold commented, “Sandra and I credit this award to all those who helped the Foundation to pursue the cockamamie idea that we could foster humanism in medicine and influence the culture of healthcare. In the beginning, most of my colleagues were skeptical. But here at the AAMC you shared our mission…..As it is said, it takes a village….YOU are our village.”
Dr. Sandra Gold added, “The future of humanism in medicine is indeed in your hands and mine. May each of us continue to weave science and the human side of healthcare into the fabric of medical education and beyond, into the practice of the entire healthcare team.”
Photos are courtesy of the Association of American Medical Colleges
