New York Academy of Medicine Awards 2017-19 Jeremiah A. Barondess Fellowship in the Clinical Transaction

New York (March 3, 2017) – The New York Academy of Medicine, in collaboration with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), has announced that the 2017-19 Jeremiah A. Barondess Fellowship in the Clinical Transaction will be awarded to Reza Sedighi Manesh, MD, Assistant Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 

The Barondess Fellowship is unique in its goal to enhance the ability of young physicians to conduct the essential elements of the clinical transaction—capacities that are required for effective clinical care, but have significantly declined among graduate trainees in recent decades. The unique program invites junior faculty in internal medicine to develop innovative programs that enhance this fundamental element of clinical care through educational innovation.

“The Academy is pleased to continue our partnership with the ACGME on this important initiative to recognize the importance of the basic physician-patient relationship, a critical part of graduate medical education,” said Academy President Jo Ivey Boufford, MD. “The fellowship honors the visionary role of Academy President Emeritus, Jeremiah A. Barondess, MD, in clinical medical education, and it recognizes his teaching of clinical skills at the bedside to generations of medical students and residents.”

Dr. Manesh will receive the award on March 10, 2017 at the 2017 ACGME Annual Educational Conference in Orlando, FL. The two-year, $50,000 fellowship will support Dr. Manesh in examining the use of the Human Diagnosis Project (Human Dx) as a scalable and objective measure of clinical reasoning. Arriving at the right diagnosis is one of the most important tasks a physician completes, and clinical reasoning around diagnosis (and management) is a core component of the clinical transaction and ACGME’s clinical competency framework. However, there is no accepted or validated method to assess trainees’ clinical reasoning skills. The Human Dx software platform allows clinicians worldwide to share and solve cases as brief case simulations. After solving a case, the user receives a score (called Clinical Quotient) based on the accuracy, efficiency, and breadth of their differential diagnosis. 

“The ACGME is proud to partner with the Academy in presenting The Barondess Fellowship to Dr. Manesh for his innovative work through the Human Diagnosis Project,” said Thomas J. Nasca, MD, chief executive officer, ACGME. “Dr. Manesh’s project gives clinicians from around the world the opportunity to come together and practice clinical reasoning to diagnose patients, a skill which is paramount to every physician interaction.”   

Dr. Manesh was selected from a highly competitive field of applicants by a Selection Committee chaired by Dr. Thomas Morris, MD, former chair of the Academy Board of Trustees, and including representatives from the Academy and the ACGME. The Committee’s review focused on the candidate, the proposed innovation, and the potential to impact the institutions’ educational and training programs related to the clinical transaction.

“I am honored to receive the Barondess Fellowship,” said Dr. Manesh. “This will provide me with an opportunity to take a scholarly approach to the teaching and measurement of our most important procedure in medicine—thinking. I am grateful to the ACGME, The New York Academy of Medicine, and Dr. Barondess.”

Reza Sedighi Manesh, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He works as a hospitalist and frequently serves as an attending physician on resident-run services. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency at the University of California San Francisco where he received the peer-nominated Jeffrey Weingarten Award—given annually to the third-year resident who best exemplifies all of the personal and professional qualities of a physician. In his first year on faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine he was awarded the Osler Housestaff Full-Time Faculty Teaching Award. Dr. Manesh is passionate about patient care, diagnostic expertise, and the teaching of medicine.

Jeremiah Barondess, MD earned his MD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, graduating with honors. He completed his clinical training at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, and then joined the faculty of the Cornell University Medical College. His service included appointment as Associate Chairman of the Department of Medicine and as the William T. Foley Distinguished Professor in Clinical Medicine. His particular clinical interests have been in diagnosis and the diagnostic process. He has written extensively on clinical matters in internal medicine, medical education, clinical ethics, the training of internists and major issues in the health of urban populations. From 1990 to 2006 he served as the first full-time president of 

The New York Academy of Medicine.

Each year the Academy awards more than $400,000 in research grants and fellowships to medical students, seasoned physicians, and investigators to support the advancement of health care studies, including major awards in the fields of cardiology, pediatrics, psychiatry, and urology. 

The New York Academy of Medicine advances solutions that promote the health and well-being of people in cities worldwide. 

Established in 1847, The New York Academy of Medicine continues to address the health challenges facing New York City and the world’s rapidly growing urban populations. We accomplish this through our Institute for Urban Health, home of interdisciplinary research, evaluation, policy and program initiatives; our world class historical medical library and its public programming in history, the humanities and the arts; and our Fellows program, a network of more than 2,000 experts elected by their peers from across the professions affecting health. Our current priorities are healthy aging, disease prevention, and eliminating health disparities. 

The ACGME is a private, non-profit, professional organization responsible for the accreditation of approximately 9,600 residency and fellowship programs and approximately 700 institutions that sponsor these programs in the United States. Residency and fellowship programs educate over 120,000 resident physicians in 130 specialties and subspecialties. The ACGME’s mission is to improve health care and population health by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians’ education through accreditation.