AAFP announces winners of its prestigious awards

The American Academy of Family Physicians announced the recipients of its most prestigious awards this week at its annual meeting. Four family physicians from across the nation were recognized for their outstanding contributions to family medicine and the health of the public.

Each of these awards recognizes family physicians who have made exceptional advances in furthering the health of their communities through service and education.

Smith has served the citizens of rural Hoke County, North Carolina, for more than two decades. She provides the full spectrum of family medicine, from obstetrics to care for the elderly. "The Power of Touch: Spiritual, Physical and Emotional" are words she lives by, both in her clinical work and personal life. Despite running a bustling independent family medicine practice, Smith's care extends beyond the exam room to her family and community.

Raeford is located in an impoverished rural area of the state where primary care physicians are in short supply. Smith invests heavily in her community, and in 2004, she built a state-of-the-art clinic to serve patients. This established her as one of Hoke County's most important and progressive health care providers.

More than a decade ago, Smith's practice was one of the first rural, independent family medicine practices to simultaneously invest in technology such as interactive patient portals and kiosk-based check-ins. Smith has since earned a national reputation as a leading proponent, early adopter and expert in health information technology, such as electronic health records. She also is an aggressive promoter of computer literacy among her patient population.

Gaus is founder and executive director of Andean Health & Development in Ecuador, based at the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The mission of AHD is to provide quality, sustainable health care for rural Latin America. The hospital provides high quality secondary care to an extended community of 80,000 and also serves as a training ground for physicians, nurses and other leaders in the local community.

After receiving a bachelor's degree in accounting at the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Gaus traveled to Ecuador where he spent two years volunteering at an orphanage. The experience was life changing and led him to medical school, followed by residency at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He returned to Ecuador and soon discovered that rural hospital care was the country's greatest need.

Working with Father Theodore Hesburgh, former president of Notre Dame, Dr. Gaus founded AHD in 1997. Their pilot project was a hospital in the underserved community of Pedro Vicente Maldonado. It opened in 2000 and by 2007 was financially self-sustaining.