Being nominated for the College’s Gold Headed Cane award is a profound honor. My first College meeting was in 1984 when I was a FIT. I became a Fellow in 1988. I felt especially aligned with the College because of its straightforward meeting format, strong emphasis on clinical science, and collegiality.
I received my Bachelor of Science degree with honors from Rhodes College, and my medical degree from the University of Tennessee (UT) Center for the Health Sciences. After a pediatric internship at UT Knoxville, I entered active duty in the Army, serving at SHAPE in Belgium, and NATO in Brussels. I completed residency at Letterman Army Medical Center (AMC), and was a pediatrician at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. My allergy/immunology fellowship (1984-1986) was at Fitzsimons AMC under Drs. Ron Tipton, Richard Weber, and Harold Nelson. I remained on faculty after Dr. Tipton retired. I developed close relationships with many members of the Denver allergy/immunology community, especially Dr. Jack Selner who taught me much about upper airway anatomy, clinical practice, and life. After 10 years on active duty and a short period in New Orleans, I returned to Denver to work with Drs. Selner, Jerry Koepke, and Brock Williams. During that time, I felt an increasingly strong call to academic medicine, and I tested the call as volunteer faculty at the University of Colorado with Drs. Henry Claman and Steve Dreskin.
As a FIT, I worked with the amazing FITs at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) in Augusta, and met Drs. Betty Wray and Chet Stafford, who founded the program. In 1992, I joined the MCG faculty as a clinician and lab director. I helped to build and maintain the College’s first website (1996-2005) and served on numerous College committees, chairing the Ethics, Rhinitis, International, Annual Meeting Program, Workshop, and Publications Committees. In 2001, I received the College’s Distinguished Fellow Award and delivered the John C. Selner Lectureship. I later served on the ACAAI Board of Regents, and became vice president, president-elect, and president.
I directed the MCG fellowship from 2007-2021, was a member and chair of the ACGME allergy/immunology review committee (2011-2017), and a Director of the ABAI (2012-2017). I’ve been president of the Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Society of Georgia and the Southeastern Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology Society, where I received the Hal Davidson Award for best lecture six times.
Through College and WAO activities, I’ve given talks in the United States, China, Korea, Singapore, India, Lithuania, Poland, Greece, Georgia, Armenia, Dubai, Lebanon, and Israel. I’ve learned from colleagues around the world, even acquiring a few words in several languages. My favorite meeting activities have been “Beat the Professor” at SEAAIS and the College’s Raft Debates. With fellows and other colleagues, I have authored more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 19 book chapters.
Since retiring from active patient care at MCG, I’ve continued part-time teaching, lecturing in basic and clinical immunology for first-year students, introducing several thousand students to basic immunology, allergy and IEIs. I facilitate student PBL groups and direct the pediatric physical diagnosis program. Outside medicine, I’m an ordained priest serving as an assistant in a local church, an open water scuba instructor, and assistant conductor of the Augusta Choral Society. I’m also a recreational powerlifter.
I’ve done none of these activities alone. I’ve been blessed with exceptionally talented mentors and colleagues, including our fellows and medical students. I give thanks to God for being at my side in good times and in difficult times, and to my family for their unwavering support in this journey.
