The 2024 Special Recognition Award recipients are Richard I. Levin, MD, FACP, FACC, FAHA, and William W. Pinsky, MD.
Richard I. Levin, MD, FACP, FACC, FAHA
The Arnold P. Gold Foundation
Ensuring that patients remain at the center of all care interactions is a fundamental aspect of humanism in medicine, and Richard I. Levin, MD, has dedicated much of his career in academic medicine to furthering that noble aim, especially during the last decade while leading the Arnold P. Gold Foundation as president and CEO.
Dr. Levin joined the Gold Foundation in 2012, which champions humanism in health care, and served until his retirement on June 30, 2023. During his tenure, he expanded the organization from its roots in medical schools to embrace a wider spectrum of relationship-centered care across the various health professions. The Gold Foundation now reaches nurses and nursing schools, as well as physicians in practice, researchers, and global health care companies through the Gold Corporate Council.
Under his transformative leadership, Dr. Levin deepened the Gold Foundation’s long-standing partnership with the AAMC. That partnership is most vivid at Learn Serve Lead: The AAMC Annual Meeting, which hosts the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award Lecture, the Gold Humanism Honor Society Workshop, the Jordan J. Cohen Humanism in Medicine Lecture, and previously, the Vilcek-Gold Lecture, which honored immigrant leaders in health care. Academic Medicine, journal of the AAMC, partners with the Gold Foundation on the now 25-year-old Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest. In short, by uniquely leveraging his international standing in medical education, Dr. Levin provided his thought leadership to advance the necessity for human connection in medicine.
Dr. Levin earned a BS with honors from Yale University in 1970 and graduated from the NYU School of Medicine in 1974 (now the NYU Grossman School of Medicine), where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha. He completed a cardiology fellowship at NYU and a postdoc in vascular biology at the Specialized Center for Research in Thrombosis at Cornell University Medical College (now Weill Cornell Medicine).
In 1983, Dr. Levin launched his academic career at NYU School of Medicine, simultaneously caring for patients, conducting research, and teaching the next generations to better help those patients. There, he founded the Laboratory for Cardiovascular Research to foster novel, interdisciplinary research in basic, translational, and clinical cardiovascular sciences. He served as vice dean for education, faculty, and academic affairs, and as professor of medicine. Later, he served as dean of the faculty of medicine and vice principal for health affairs at McGill Faculty of Medicine. He is also a noted health affairs advocate, having served two terms as president of the New York City affiliate of the American Heart Association. He is the recipient of many honors, including Fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and a Doctor of Science honoris causa from Wake Forest University.
The AAMC Board of Directors recognizes Dr. Levin with a Special Recognition Award for his collaborative partnership with the AAMC to help further advance humanism in medicine.
William W. Pinsky, MD
Intealth
William W. Pinsky, MD, served as the president and CEO of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) and board chair of the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER) from 2016 through 2023. During his tenure, Dr. Pinsky provided strategic leadership that reimagined the structure of ECFMG and FAIMER, transforming and uniting these organizations to promote better health care for all. He refined how they were governed, expanded the executive leadership team, and instituted progressive realignments of the various business units to maximize organizational impact. Dr. Pinsky’s efforts culminated in 2021 with the creation of Intealth, which fulfilled his vision for fully integrating ECFMG and FAIMER to ensure a common focus and efficient use of resources. Under Intealth, ECFMG and FAIMER remain distinct divisions and are thriving.
As Intealth’s CEO, Dr. Pinsky established a new set of core values to guide ECFMG and FAIMER in developing their complementary missions. Of his work, current Intealth Board Chair Peter F. Buckley, MD, said that Dr. Pinsky “has elevated our baseline, creating a stronger foundation to support the future needs of the world’s physicians and other health professionals, medical education and regulatory communities, researchers and policymakers, and the public.”
Prior to joining ECFMG and FAIMER, Dr. Pinsky served as executive vice president and chief academic officer of Ochsner Health in New Orleans for more than 17 years. His tenure at Ochsner Health came after he served as professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine for nearly 13 years. Dr. Pinsky received his medical degree from the Saint Louis University School of Medicine in 1973 and completed a pediatric cardiology fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine in 1978.
During his time at Ochsner Health, Dr. Pinsky was an ardent supporter of students training in the University of Queensland-Ochsner MD Program, and he worked tirelessly to ensure they could engage in opportunities like visiting clerkships. He took this advocacy for students to ECFMG, where he was a key partner for the AAMC in supporting international medical graduates in their applications for residency training. Under his leadership, the collaboration between ECFMG and the AAMC team behind the Electronic Residency Application Service® grew stronger, as the teams streamlined the application process and its support for this critical population within our medical workforce.
Dr. Pinsky was frequently asked to join conversations and workgroups with the AAMC, where he always brought a thoughtful, balanced, and practical approach to these conversations, while tirelessly and gently advocating for international medical graduates.
The AAMC Board of Directors recognizes Dr. Pinsky with a Special Recognition Award for his demonstrated, collaborative leadership in working closely with the AAMC’s medical education and services teams to advance the quality in health care education across the globe to improve health care for all.