Meet the 2022 Winner: Randall Curtis, MD, MPH

Dr. Curtis has been a pulmonary, critical care, and palliative care physician at Harborview Medical Center at the University of Washington.  He also holds the A. Bruce Montgomery – American Lung Association Endowed Chair in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and he is the founding Director of the Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence at UW Medicine.  He has an active research program with over 25 years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health and has also received funding from a number of foundations including the Cambia Health Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the East Seattle Foundation and the Greenwall Foundation.  His research focuses on improving palliative care for patients with serious illness as well as for patients’ families.  He has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed research articles and more than 150 editorials and chapters. His publications have been in high-impact journals including JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and JAMA Internal Medicine.  Dr. Curtis has been the recipient of several lifetime achievement awards and other awards for his research and teaching in palliative care including a Lifetime Achievement Award and Mentoring Award by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.   Dr. Curtis has made mentoring in palliative care research a priority during his career. He was the founding Director of a T32 award training research fellows in palliative care research from NHLBI. He is also a dual Director of an additional T32 award for pulmonary and critical care research that has been funded for over 30 years by NHLBI and is a multiple Director of an Implementation Science K12 Award, also from NHLBI for training the next generation of researchers. 

Description:

This award is given in appreciation of a career devoted to research, and teaching of the science and practice of critical care medicine, as well as outstanding service to the Assembly on Critical Care. The awardee will be honored at the CC Assembly gathering at the ATS International Conference.

Criteria:

• An active clinician or investigator in critical care medicine ~ 16 years since completion of training (i.e., fellowship or terminal doctoral degree, whichever was completed/awarded latest)
• Recognized for making outstanding contributions to the international science or practice of CC medicine.
• Recognized by his/her peers as an outstanding clinician and/or researcher, teacher, and mentor.
• A CCA member (primary or secondary).
• Contributions to the CC Assembly in the form of committee participation or leadership, promoting CCA diversity, and/or otherwise advancing the CCA’s mission will be viewed favorably.

The nomination package must include a nomination letter touching on all four scoring metrics (see below scoring rubric) from one or more members of ATS describing why the award is merited. Nominators should note in their letter any extenuating circumstances affecting the nominee. The curriculum vitae from the candidate must also be included with the nomination packet. Unawarded nominations from prior years do not carry over and should be resubmitted; previous awardees are not eligible for the same award.

Scoring Rubric:

 Applicants are scored on 4 criteria using a 1-5 rating system (with 1 being the best) across the below categories. In the event that none of the nominees in a given category receive an average score ≤3 , the Planning Committee may choose to defer granting an award in that category that year. If the Planning Committee does not receive any eligible nominations in a given category (e.g., CCA member, active clinician/investigator for roughly the stated time frame), the Committee may choose to nominate an individual, who must be unanimously approved by all members in order to receive the award.

• Scientific Contributions/Products (which may include: research articles, data, reagents, software, and intellectual property)
• Teaching/Mentoring/Educational/Advocacy Contributions
• Participation in Assembly and ATS Activities (administrative, committees, workshops etc.)
• Overall impact/impression of dossier submitted for award application

View Previous Award Recipients