Society for Pediatric Research recognizes one academic pediatrician each year with the Maureen Andrew Mentor Award
By BRANDON NGUYEN — science@theaggie.org
The national Maureen Andrew Mentor Award annually recognizes an academic pediatrician for outstanding track record of mentorship and leadership. “The Maureen Andrew Mentor Award honors Dr. Maureen Andrew’s contributions to pediatric health research,” said the Society for Pediatric Research, the organization that presents the award. “The award recognizes outstanding mentorship that generates excitement, creativity and scholarship leading to outstanding research and education.”
This year, Dr. Nathan Kuppermann, the chair of the emergency medicine division trained as a pediatric emergency physician at UC Davis Health, the Maureen Andrew Mentor Award for his impact on countless students and mentees in the field of pediatric research.
“I’ll tell you that I’ve won other awards in my career, but this is perhaps one of the most significant because it’s all about mentorship,” Kuppermann said. “I have received good mentorship from my mentors and this is how we prepay it. The nomination for the award was initiated by a group of my mentees, so it makes a lot of sense because I feel like the most lasting impact I can have is to train a new generation of individuals to advance science a little bit. so we can continue to provide better care for sick and injured children.”
Throughout his career, Kuppermann has mentored many students, educators, residents, and fellows at UC Davis Medical Center, and in addition to his mentorship, his leadership led to the creation of many national organizations to advance pediatric research and healthcare. Some of the few national organizations he has helped establish include the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Collaborative Research Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network, and the Clinical Research on Emergency Services and Treatments Network of Kaiser Permanente.
dr. Leah Tzimenatos, an emergency medicine pediatrician and vice chair of UC Davis Health’s department of emergency medicine, described how Kuppermann stands out as an academic pediatrician.
“I was really excited for him when I heard the news, and to be honest I wasn’t very surprised,” Tzimenatos said. †[Dr. Kuppermann] is a very phenomenal mentor, and there are some things that make him stand out, but a few of them are just the sheer number of successful pediatrics professionals he has mentored over the years. He guides everyone from medical students to residents to fellows a little bit through the breadth of the training and has a number of faculty mentees as well, and he is really committed to each of his mentees.”
In addition to receiving the Maureen Andrew Mentor Award, Kuppermann has underlined the importance of his philosophy and values as a pediatric researcher and mentor by leaving a lasting legacy on his mentees who enter the medical field. This would not have been possible without the guidance of his own mentor at Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. Gary Fleisher, an important figure in Kuppermann’s life who taught him how to approach pediatric research.
“In terms of what this award means to me, rather than awards that recognize a single achievement or a single research study, this just has more meaning to me because it really reflects a career of trying to give back a little bit and , again, to pay it forward,” said Kuppermann. “I want to make sure and I expect my mentees to do bigger and better things than I’ve done. This award is more of a philosophy of life than an individual research award, that inside means a lot to me.”
Written by: Brandon Nguyen — science@theaggie.org
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