Tutty and Kostecki receive Chair’s Awards
Family medicine faculty honored for advancing health care reform, improving community-based maternal-child care
October 24, 2012
The Department of Family Medicine & Community Health (FMCH) Chair’s Awards recognize extraordinary accomplishments by department faculty who have enhanced their specialty, community and school. This year’s recipients, FMCH instructor Michael Tutty, PhD, and assistant professor Anita Kostecki, MD, were both singled out for their numerous contributions to primary care education and care.
The FMCH Chair’s Awards were instituted by Daniel Lasser, MD, chair and professor of family medicine & community health. In his recent announcement of the 2012 awardees, Dr. Lasser cited Dr. Tutty for his innovative work as the project director for the Massachusetts Health Insurance Exchange and Integrated Eligibility Systems project, responsible for building the technical infrastructure for health insurance exchanges in the New England states. An active and committed educator, Tutty teaches health policy in the Population Health Clerkship on Health Policy, Third Year Health Policy Interclerkship, Flexible Clinical Encounter in Policy and the U.S. Health Care System and the U.S. Health Care System Optional Enrichment Elective.
Lasser lauded Dr. Kostecki for her clinical leadership as director of the department’s Maternal and Newborn Inpatient Services, a role in which she has been instrumental in helping the many family physicians who include maternity care in their busy practices to provide quality care to vulnerable populations in their own community. As an educator, she developed obstetrical ultrasound training for attending family medicine physicians, and developed a simulation workshop for OB emergencies. She has also conducted research as a Quality Scholar focused on improving pap smear processes at Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center, where she practices.
“Knowing the exceptionally talented faculty in the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health, I am honored and humbled to receive this award,” said Tutty. “I am thankful for the support of those I work with in our efforts to implement health reform and educate students on the importance of understanding health policy issues.”
“There are days when our work is really challenging,” Kostecki said. “Being recognized for doing a good job gives me renewed energy to keep it all going strong.”
Related links on UMassMedNow:
Newsmaker: Tutty, Himmelstein on lessons learned from health reform
Family Medicine and Community Health faculty recognized