(Philadelphia, PA) - Helen C. Davies,
PhD, MS, Professor of Microbiology and Ombudsman for Students
at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine,
is the recipient of an Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Robert J. Glaser
Distinguished Teacher Award. Davies is being recognized by the Association
of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) for her efforts to provide the
nation’s next generation of doctors with an exceptional educational
experience.
“I was thrilled to learn that I won the award. It’s
terrific; a wonderful feeling,” said Davies, who will receive
the award at a dinner reception at the AAMC Annual Meeting on October
28.
“I am very pleased that Dr. Davies’ efforts on behalf
of medical students have been honored in this way,” said Robert
Doms, Chair of Penn’s Department of Microbiology.
“Dr. Davies is among our most distinguished teachers, and
scores of Penn medical students - past and present - count Dr. Davies
as an inspirational and life-altering educator, mentor, and friend.”
For 35 years, Davies, 81, has incorporated unique methods into
her lessons to help her students learn and retain the symptoms and
mechanisms of various infectious diseases. Davies writes original
song lyrics and performs them to the tunes of popular songs, which
are hits among her medical students. One of her more famous songs,
“Leprosy,” is set to the tune of the Beatle’s
“Yesterday.”
During her 40-year teaching career, Davies has achieved many “firsts.”
She was the first female faculty member named to Penn’s department
of microbiology (1965), the first woman faculty member to be designated
“master of a college house” at Penn (1995-2002), and
the first woman to ever receive the American Medical Student Association’s
National Excellence in Teaching Award (2001).
Davies’ educational efforts have been focused on recruiting,
mentoring, and retaining minority groups and women in biomedical
careers. From 1968 to 1976, she headed the High School Education
Program of the University of Pennsylvania - a program that helped
bring disadvantaged students to university laboratories. In that
period, she also helped found the Association for Women in Science
(AWIS), the International Association for Women Biochemists and
Biophysicists, and the Women for Equal Opportunity at the University
of Pennsylvania.
Davies received her PhD in Physical Biochemistry from Penn, her
BA in Chemistry from Brooklyn College, and her MS in Biochemistry
from the University of Rochester. Her research interest is in the
biochemistry of prokaryotic organisms, with particular focus on
bacterial energetics, electron transfer, and the cytochrome system.
With her dedication to students and obvious passion for teaching,
Davies has touched the lives of many. According to one former student,
now a practicing physician, “She single-handedly shaped my
life more than any professor I have ever known through her teaching,
through her stimulation, her sharing, and her love.”
The Alpha Omega Alpha Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teacher Awards
were established by the AOA medical honor society in 1988 to provide
national recognition to faculty members who have distinguished themselves
in medical student education. Named for the long-time AOA executive
secretary Robert J. Glaser, MD, the awards are based on a national
competition conducted annually through the offices of the deans
of U.S. and Canadian medical schools, and are designed to recognize
distinction in medical student teaching.
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