Congratulations to Krupa Patel, who has been selected to receive the 2020 Dr. Robert L. Willenkin Award, which is given annually to the best University of Pittsburgh medical student in the field of anesthesiology. We commend her on all her accomplishments and are extremely excited to mention that she will be joining our UPMC Anesthesiology Residency Program to train from 2020-2024.
The award is named in honor of Robert L. Willenkin, MD, who came to the University of Pittsburgh in 1982 by way of Yale University and then the University of California at San Francisco. He served as a member of our faculty from 1982 until retiring as Professor Emeritus in 1996. During his career, Dr. Willenkin was a local and national leader in anesthesiology education. He served as Vice Chair for Education in our department and presented more than 60 invited national lectures during his career and beyond. In 1984, he became one of the founding members of the Society for Education in Anesthesia (SEA), an organization in which he continues to be active. In addition, he founded the SEA Workshop on Teaching, a workshop many of our faculty have participated in and one that Dr. Willenkin continues to teach.