AΩA Honor Medical Society Funds Research + Education Fellowships for Future Medical Leaders
By: Colorado BioScience Association Date: 10/25/2020
Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society (AΩA) aims to improve the medical profession and care for all through education, teaching, leadership, humanism, and community service.
AΩA is the nation’s only interdisciplinary honor medical society providing $2 million annually in grants, fellowships, awards, and programs to medical faculty and students, and mid-career physicians. CBSA President & CEO, Jennifer Jones Paton, asked Dee Martinez, AΩA’s Chief of Staff, CBSA’s Key Questions for Life Sciences Innovators.
Q: Tell us about your company or organization.
A: Located on the Anschutz Medical Campus in the Fitzsimmons Bioscience Research Park, Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society (AΩA) is dedicated to improving the profession of medicine. Its members exemplify the highest levels of competence, character, trust, leadership, professionalism, scholarship, excellence in physicianship, and community service. Founded in 1902, AΩA is the nation’s only interdisciplinary honor medical society. We have chapters in 132 medical schools and a membership of more than 200,000. AΩA welcomes 4,000 new members annually.
Q: Describe your team culture. How does your culture shape what your company or organization produces or offers?
A: AΩA is committed to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the profession of medicine and health professional education, and overcoming the barriers that impede improving health care for all. We are dedicated to guiding medicine to be unbiased, open, accepting, inclusive, and culturally aware. We work as allies to eliminate the social determinants of health, ensure equality and inclusiveness in medicine, stand strong against racial, religious, ethical, gender, and other injustices, and to be ambassadors for our patients and for each other.
Q: What are you working on right now?
A: AΩA provides $2 million annually in grants, fellowships, awards, and programs to medical students, mid-career physicians, and medical school faculty. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, AΩA has provided $600,000 to fund Student Research Fellowships, AΩA Fellows in Leadership, Medical School Student Leadership Project Grants, Administrative Recognition Awards, Student Essay Awards, Student Poetry Awards, Distinguished Teacher Awards, Postgraduate Fellowships, and Volunteer Clinical Faculty Awards.
Q: How will your work save or change lives?
A: AΩA’s research, leadership, and education fellowships develop future leaders in the medical profession. Fellowship recipients are guiding the next generation to develop ways to overcome the social determinants of health; explore new medical and scientific discoveries, support innovative medicine, mentor and cultivate physician leaders, and prepare the world for the next pandemic.
AΩA biennially assembles nationally renowned leaders to strategize, share ideas and concepts, and produce medical professionalism monographs that provide best practices to ensure that the medical profession is adept, proactive, and prepared to adapt to modern medicine.
Q: How has COVID-19 impacted your company or organization?
A: We have professed compassion and caring with candor and consistency, answering the call to duty responsibly with clarity and encouragement. Dr. Anthony Fauci (AΩA, Weill Cornell Medical College 1965) has been our inspiration leading with dignity, respect, and knowledge.
On March 17, we shifted to have the national office team work remotely, developing new ways to stay in touch. Virtual meetings have become the standard, enabling us to carry on with the work of AΩA.
Q: CBSA champions a collaborative life sciences ecosystem because we are #stongertogether. How has being an active participant in our life sciences community supported your success?
A: AΩA has long valued the contributions of Colorado BioScience Association to the Colorado health sciences community and the nation at-large. Since its inception, and under the leadership of its Board and Executive Directors, including its inaugural Executive Director Denise Brown, CBSA has been an effective leader for the medical community, affecting change at the local, state, and national levels. We are grateful for the innovation and leadership of CBSA and look forward to our continued partnership for years to come.
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