Distinguished Alumni Awards at Mayo Clinic - updated

Mayo Clinic has announced its 2009 Distinguished Alumni Awards scheduled for presentation Aug. 14. 

***Note:  This version is updated with a correction from the source.***

"This award recognizes the exceptional contributions of Mayo alumni to the field of medicine, including practice, research, education and administration," says a Mayo announcement.

According to the announcement, recipients include:

• Dr. Franklyn Knox

"Dr. Knox is a professor of physiology and medicine at the College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and former chair of the Department of Physiology, former director of Education and former dean of the College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic. He chaired both the University of Minnesota Rochester Area Advisory Committee and the Greater Rochester Advocates for Universities and Colleges helping to bring a branch of the University of Minnesota to Rochester.

Dr. Knox is internationally recognized as a leader in renal physiology and has trained more than 100 research fellows. His studies on the regulation of sodium and phosphate metabolism in the kidney were recognized by a National Institute of Health Career Development Award and by the Ray G. Diggs and Robert W. Berliner Awards of the American Physiological Society. He is author or co-author of 282 peer-reviewed articles."

• Dr. Irwin Schatz

"Dr. Schatz is a professor of medicine at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu. He was chair of the Department of Medicine and led the residency program at the University of Hawaii for more than two decades. He completed a fellowship in internal medicine at Mayo Clinic in 1961.

Dr. Schatz has published almost 100 articles about orthostatic hypotension, cardiovascular risk factors and medical education. He was a major contributor to the Honolulu Heart Program, a longitudinal study with 44 years of follow-up in Japanese-American men. He was instrumental in questioning the ethics of the controversial Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service. Dr. Schatz's letter to the study's author, discovered by a reporter in the early 1970s, was the only one from a physician to complain about the study. A subsequent article in the Wall Street Journal precipitated media attention about informed consent and led to major changes in how patients are protected in clinical studies."

• Dr. Sheldon Sheps

"Dr. Sheps devoted his career to the relationship between vascular disease and hypertensive target organ injury. He has made seminal contributions in the development, management and understanding of the natural history and treatment of renal vascular hypertension.

Dr. Sheps was asked to join Mayo Clinic by the then leadership of the vascular sections. He focused on rare forms of vascular diseases, including vasculitis, and has an international reputation in the diagnosis and treatment of adrenal pheochromocytoma. He was actively involved in the investigative protocols examining the efficacy of drugs for management of hypertension, and in the collection of data for seminal manuscripts on fibromuscular renal artery disease. For six years Dr.Sheps chaired the Division of Hypertension (now a part of Nephrology) at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

He became a member of and eventually chair of the Committee on Hypertension of the American College of Chest Physicians. He also was asked to serve as the American College of Chest Physicians representative on the National High Blood Pressure Education Program. Because of his constructive efforts on this committee, he assumed chairmanship of the working group for the Sixth Joint National Committee on the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure — the standard guidelines by which hypertensive therapy in the United States is measured and which has served as the basis for many organizations worldwide. Dr. Sheps has authored nearly 300 papers, abstracts and editorials.

In retirement, Dr. Sheps has been active as a mentor for faculty interested in hypertension research and has served as section editor of all three editions of the American Heart Association Hypertension Primer, editor-in-chief of Mayo Clinic on High Blood Pressure, and associate editor of the Third Edition of the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book. He serves as an associate medical editor of the Mayo Clinic health information Web site, MayoClinic.com. Dr. Sheps also serves as a consultant to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, World Health Organization and American Health Organization."

• Jon van Heerden

"Dr. van Heerden is a professor of surgery and vice chair for Education in the Department of Surgery at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and a Mayo Clinic emeritus professor of surgery. Dr. van Heerden, a national and international leader in general and endocrine surgery, spent 32 years at Mayo Clinic, where he performed 28,000 operations, and trained more than 350 surgical trainees and dozens of fellows.

Dr. van Heerden has published more than 443 peer-reviewed articles, three surgical textbooks, 64 book chapters, dozens of editorials and 15 videos. His research prowess was acknowledged by the Oliver Cope Meritorious Achievement Award from the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons in 2004."

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904