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TAFP award winners announced in The Woodlands


By Samantha White
November 25, 2024

The best and brightest of Texas family medicine were honored November 9 as the 2024 TAFP award winners were announced in The Woodlands during the Annual Session and Primary Care Summit.

Celia B. Neavel, MD, FSAHM, FAAFP, receives the Texas Family Physician of the Year Award from TAFP President Terrance Hines, MD.

Texas Family Physician of the Year: Celia B. Neavel, MD, FSAHM, FAAFP

Neavel founded and is the director of the Center for Adolescent Health at People’s Community Clinic in Austin. She also created and directs the GOALS program at PCC, which is a developmental behavioral primary care program for students. Neavel is also faculty at both Texas A&M’s School of Medicine and the Department of Population Health at Dell Medical School.

Long before the concepts were widely recognized, Neavel built the Center to utilize a team-based, holistic approach to care that would empower the adolescent population to take their health into their own hands. She cultivated relationships with community organizations along the way, developed a Youth Advisory Council to include adolescent voices, and pursued grants that have enabled the Center to grow and provide cutting edge, evidence-based care.

Neavel has worked for decades to create a safe space for vulnerable patients who don’t have other safe options to run to. She is quick to credit her teams and colleagues, making it difficult to see the extent of her body of work without looking at her full CV.

Neavel’s nominator and colleague, Feba Thomas, MD, called her a force of nature, saying that “Her impact on generations of patients and physicians will continue to be felt for years to come. Her vision has guided not just the People’s Community Clinic Center for Adolescent Health, but many organizations in Texas and across the nation. She embodies what it is to be a family physician.”


VIEW PHOTOS FROM THE 2024 AWARDS CEREMONY


Public Health Award: James Felberg, MD, FAAFP

Felberg is an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, as well as the assistant medical director of hospital medicine. He also serves as the deputy medical director for the Lubbock County Department of Health and is health authority for the South Plains Public Health District and for several surrounding rural counties.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Felberg saw the gap between hospital and outpatient care grow. With the great need for hospital beds at the time, there was a need to discharge patients quickly, and not always someone to catch them after discharge. Felberg collaborated with the City of Lubbock’s public health department to improve care transitions by opening an intermediary care clinic, creating a new access point for patients recently discharged from the hospital who do not have a medical home, regardless of their ability to pay. Though not a replacement for primary care, the clinic is a soft landing to provide medical and social support to overcome barriers to care and become established with a traditional primary care provider.

A colleague who nominated Felberg says that it’s rare to find a physician willing to take a critical look at systems, identify solutions, develop new programs, and take on the clinical work necessary to make those new programs succeed. “Dr. Felberg is one of these rare physicians,” she said.


Exemplary Teaching Award – Academic: Tatiana Cordova, MD

Cordova is an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UT Health San Antonio, where she also practices full-scope family medicine while supervising and teaching family medicine residents and medical students. She is also the residency program’s clinical director of women’s services, where she offers a unique educational experience with a service that sees up to 16 complex newborns inpatient daily.

A nominator says that Cordova systematically improved the education of residents and students in maternity care using modern quality improvement methods. One former resident says that she became much more confident in her own ability to provide maternal and newborn care thanks to Cordova’s patience and collaborative instruction style, including in women’s health procedures.

Time and time again nominators wrote about Cordova’s kind, encouraging, and calm teaching style; her ability to inspire loyalty within the health care team; and her willingness to work to mitigate health disparities in education and health care.


Diversity and Health Equity Leadership Award: Bich-May Nguyen, MD, MPH, FAAFP

Nguyen is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health Sciences at the University of Houston Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine. She is also the course director of Physicians, Patients, and Populations, which is critical in preparing diverse physicians to work with underserved communities in their future careers.

Through a series of grants from the National Institutes of Health, Nguyen works on research focused on increasing the COVID-19 vaccination rate among Vietnamese Americans. The three-year project also includes an intervention study with older Vietnamese immigrants and refugees with mild depressive symptoms. Through this project, she collaborated with community organizations to reach more than 30,000 people in person and over one million people online with education about COVID-19 vaccines.

Nguyen pitched and organized a special racism issue of the Family Medicine journal published by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, for which she served as guest editor in 2019. She has also written about affirmative action and the Black Lives Matter movement.


Patient Advocacy Award: Helen Kent Davis

Kent Davis was honored last year by the Texas Legislature with House Resolution 2328, commending her for 25 years of advocacy on women’s and children’s health issues in Texas. She played an instrumental role in establishing the Children’s Health Coverage Coalition, and over the course of two decades, the organization has become a leading voice for children covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. She also helped found the Texas Women’s Healthcare Coalition, which has worked tirelessly to support women’s health in Texas.

Through her previous work with TMA and her current work as a consultant for TAFP and other organizations, she has conducted health care policy research, development, and advocacy on diverse state and national regulatory and legislative issues. Following the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, Kent Davis worked with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to develop plans to reenroll nearly six million Medicaid recipients.

Throughout her career, Helen has been a vigorous advocate for women’s and children’s health, primary care, behavioral health, and uninsured and underinsured Texans. Her extensive knowledge of policy and legislation is unparalleled, as is her skill in helping advance the health of all Texans, especially the most at-risk.


Rising Star Award: Arindam Sarkar, MD, FAAFP

Though in his first few years as a practicing family physician, Sarkar has quite the CV. He is the director of medical student education for the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where he is also an assistant professor and clerkship director. He has been active in TAFP business since residency, is on the board for the Harris County chapter of TAFP, and serves as a preceptor for the Texas Family Medicine Preceptorship Program.

Sarkar not only leads efforts to promote family medicine to medical students, but volunteers with a BCM-affiliated middle school, promoting the specialty to students as young as fourth grade. His colleagues agree that Sarkar has a direct role in the number of medical students electing to remain at BCM for a family medicine residency.

As chair of the undergraduate medical education committee, Sarkar secured funding to grow a team of three faculty to 15 funded educational leaders. He has played an instrumental role in restructuring clinical curriculum at BCM, and single-handedly developed and implemented a robust integrated curriculum for family medicine medical students, which became the gold standard for other clerkships at Baylor.

The Rising Star Award is new to TAFP and was created to honor new-to-practice members who show exceptional achievement in academics, leadership, and/or advocacy to further the mission of the specialty of family medicine.


Unsung Hero Award: Daniel Casey, MD

Casey is the program director at the John Peter Smith Family Medicine Residency Program in Fort Worth. As a former resident of Casey’s, TAFP President Terrance Hines, MD, chose to honor Casey with this award for his dedication to the program since 2005.

“By my count, that means around 500 family doctors have benefited from his mentorship,” Hines said while presenting the award.

“A year ago, I asserted that my residency at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth was the most transformative time of my life. I said that it made me into a good doctor and a better person. That experience was clearly a result of the leadership of Dr. Dan Casey.”

Casey was involved in the P4 Initiative and Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Length of Training Pilot, which has led to innovations and improvements in the education of family medicine residents.

The American Board of Family Medicine regards him as the most tenured family medicine residency innovator in the nation.


Presidential Award of Merit: Doug Curran, MD, FAAFP

Curran practices full-scope family medicine and teaches family medicine at UT Health Athens in East Texas. He has previously been honored as Texas Family Physician of the Year and served both as TAFP president as well as president of the Texas Medical Association. He has also served as Texas delegate to AAFP’s Congress of Delegates.

Curran's tenure with the TAFP has been marked by exemplary leadership and mentorship. He has been instrumental in guiding both current and future family medicine leaders. He was instrumental in opening the UT Tyler Family Medicine Residency Athens program and recently worked to establish a federally qualified health center in Athens, further solidifying his dedication to rural communities and medical education.

While presenting the award, Hines applauded Curran’s long tenure as a leader in the specialty.

“Reflecting on the legacy of past recipients of this award, it is clear to me that Dr. Curran stands shoulder to shoulder with those who have significantly advanced the field of family medicine. His contributions are not only a source of personal inspiration but also embody the pinnacle of our profession.”


Medical School Award of Achievement: University of the Incarnate Word

The University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine in San Antonio achieved 25% of their graduating students entering family medicine residency programs for the class of 2024. TAFP established this award in 1993 to encourage Texas medical schools to increase the number of graduates entering family medicine residencies.