Inaugural Teri Li Education Award, Rachel is due!

Inaugural Teri Li Education Award

Last week I took my annual sojourn to the NASPGHAN (pediatric GI) national meeting held in Salt Lake City, and, the last meeting of my six year term as the President-Elect, President and Past President.  As you know, the last third of my term as President was truncated due to Teri’s catastrophic illness.  It was a heart-strings plucking experience.

It was like being amongst my large family.  Many of my former committee chairs and councilors came up to me and personally thanked me for the opportunity, encouragement and synergy they felt working with me.  Many others asked how I was doing.  Many good conversations.  Alan, the Distinguished Service Awardee from Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard mentioned me as ‘his patron saint’.  He is a model educator and also the chair of the Teri Li Education Award selection committee (in good hands).

We were able to establish a permanent endowment to support this award and now want to expand its platform to support pilot innovative educational grants …  NASPGHAN published the names of all 92 contributors in the Awards Ceremony brochure.

In my introduction to the inaugural Teri Li Education Award, I showed a picture of Teri and Jack and described her passion for education and for the young, both of which are evident in this award for education by a young (‘adolescent’) faculty member within 10 years of finishing fellowship (≈ < 42 years).  Jeanie was selected as the inaugural awardee.  She is a young star educator in our society who has already made huge educational contributions to our field.  Besides that, she is an Asian American woman and one who has endured a successful bone marrow transport in one of her children.  Teri would be triply proud of her.

I was given the opportunity to give the lead talk at the Annual Post-Graduate Course, on what else, Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome.

Old friends

The week before the meeting, Modena and Gary came up from Chicago to visit.  I hadn’t seen them for 6 years since we moved up to Milwaukee.  Modena and I go way back 39 years to the antiquities, both in medical school at Kansas U. and pediatric residency as the U. of Wisconsin.  It was a time of remembrance of shared experience and Teri.  At NASPGHAN, I had dinner with Phil and Joanie, Phil a fellow medical student at Kansas U. who went into pediatric GI.  We recalled 41 years of intermittently shared experience starting a medical student newspaper together and attempting to begin a medical student commune (5 couples).  Kids, grandkids and eldercare are common themes.  Hopefully we’ll be on the receiving end of the latter. 

Rachel is due!

Rachel is due today just as the hurricane hits the East Coast.  Jack turns 2 on Monday.  They are stocked up on water, food, generator, gas and prepared and in laws.  Becky checked up on them.  I was going to go but she advised me to hold off.  Stay tuned!

For those of you who has asked how to contrinbute:

NASPGHAN Foundation – Teri Li Education Fund

NASPGHAN

1501 Bethlehem Pike

PO Box 6

Flourtown, PA  19031

Thank you!