Dr. Everett Vokes, Chair of the Department, recently named Philip Hoffman,MD and Julian Solway,MD as the 2021 recipients of the Department of Medicine Distinguished Service Award for their outstanding work and dedication to the Department’s tripartite mission.
Dr. Hoffman, Professor of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology), has spent his entire academic career in the Department of Medicine, starting with his fellowship training in hematology/oncology in 1977. In 1980 he joined the faculty as assistant professor of medicine and in 2003, he was promoted to the rank of professor, the position he currently holds. In 2008 Dr. Hoffman was appointed as Associate Section Chief for Appointments and Promotions in the Section of Hematology/Oncology In that role, he has worked tirelessly on behalf of the Section and has been valuable partner in the Department’s appointment and promotion process.
Dr. Hoffman’s contributions to the Department’s educational mission have been remarkable. He has been an outstanding teacher to generations of residents and fellows for the past 40 years. Many trainees count him as one the best teachers that they have been exposed to in their medical careers. The list of his educational activities is extremely long and there are many that he has led and excelled at. He has been recognized for many years for his outstanding teaching skills in the medical school, as well as the internal medicine residency and hematology/oncology fellowship programs. He has appeared most years (25 times at least) on the Pritzker School of Medicine’s graduating class composite portrait as one of their favorite faculty and in 2016 he received the Faculty Physician Peer Role Model Award. He is also a Master of the Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators at Pritzker. The Internal Medicine Residency graduating class has recognized Dr. Hoffman 9 times as a faculty honoree. Within the Department of Medicine he has been honored with the Postgraduate Teaching Award (2012), Clinical Teacher of the Year Award ( 2013) and Pre-clinical Teacher of the Year ( 2009 and 2015). In 2012 he was appointed as a Senior Faculty Scholar in the Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence. Nationally, Dr. Hoffman was honored with ASCO’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016.
As a clinician, Dr. Hoffman is an expert in cancers of the lung and breast. He continues as one of our busiest clinicians and sees a high volume of patients in those programs. With his natural and easy going demeanor, Dr. Hoffman takes a complex medical situation and make sense of it and at the same time, make patients and trainees feel comfortable despite facing a difficult problem. . He has authored close to 120 publications and book chapters.
Dr. Solway currently serves as the Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and Dean for Translational Medicine, Biological Sciences Division. He recently served as Vice Chair for Research, a position he held since 2005, where he provided important oversight and support of the Department’s research programs and recruitment activities with a particular focus on translational research.
Dr. Solway’s contributions and accomplishments during his tenure as Vice Chair for Research are extensive. In his role as Vice Chair, he helped design the Physician Scientist Development Program, and was instrumental in planning the allocation of new research space in KCBD when it opened in 2009; he was actively involved in fostering collaborations between the Department and the BSD and helped develop and lead the Clinical & Translational Research Forum in 2013 and in 2014. Dr. Solway provided oversight for DOM Research Day from its inception in 2006 and the external review of the Department’s research programs in 2015, and helped organize and execute a research retreat focused on metabolism in 2016. For the Department’s junior faculty, Dr. Solway developed initiatives and programs to ensure the success of the physician scientists, including the Coggeshall Fellowship Program, review of first K and R applications, and the creation of mentoring committees. He also secured two NHLBI K12 institutional career development awards to support junior faculty, has led or co-led (with Dr. Anne Sperling) the Respiratory Biology T32 Training Grant for 24 years, and (with Dr. Vineet Arora) recently obtained a Burroughs Wellcome Physician Scientist Institutional Award to train MD-only Pritzker students in basic and translational research.
During most of his tenure as Vice Chair for Research, Dr. Solway has also been Associate Dean or Dean for Translational Medicine. In the context of that BSD position, he undertook BSD-wide endeavors that have contributed importantly to the success of our own department. In 2007 he founded the NIH CTSA-funded Institute for Translational Medicine which through its many educational and research support mechanisms has served the research needs our faculty and trainees well. Dr. Solway is one of the leaders of myCHOICE, the exposure and skills development program highly valued by our graduate students and post-docs.
Dr. Vokes presented Drs. Hoffman and Solway with their award on September 14, 2021.