Dr. Pat Fleet, UW associate professor of medicine practicing at Harborview Medical Center, is the 1998 recipient of the James W. Haviland Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nephrology. He will be honored Oct. 3 at the Northwest Kidney Foundation’s ninth annual Celebration of Excellence. Fleet is being honored “for the compassion and gracious care he extends to certain of his patients: those struggling not only with kidney failure, but with destitution, homelessness, alcoholism, addiction and other physical and mental disabilities.”

Dr. John Geyman, professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Family Medicine, has received the 1998 Alumnus of the Year Award from the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. Geyman graduated from UCSF in 1960 as president of his senior class. He was honored as a pioneer in developing the field of academic family medicine. He chaired the UW Department of Family Medicine from 1976 to 1990 and is now editor of the Journal of the American Board of Family Practice and teaches part-time at the UW.

Dr. James LoGerfo, professor of medicine and health services and associate dean of the School of Medicine, is stepping down as medical director at Harborview Medical Center after 10 years. LoGerfo, who was associate chair of medicine and co-director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program prior to being named medical director at HMC, plans to return to patient care, teaching, and research in disease management and quality improvement. Dr. H. Richard Winn, professor and chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery, will head the search committee for LoGerfo’s successor.

Dr. Frederick M. Chen, third-year UW family medicine resident, has been selected for this year’s Glaxo Wellcome Family Practice Resident Scholars Program. He received a $1,000 grant to attend and participate in the annual Scientific Assembly of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) in San Francisco last month. Chen will stay at the UW as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar for two years after completing his residency. He is a graduate of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.

Dr. Michael Vitiello, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has been named editor-in-chief (for the Americas) of Sleep Medicine Reviews. The journal, which publishes only invited, externally refereed reviews, examines all aspects of sleep medicine. The journal is designed to be an international forum for opinions on sleep medicine. It covers emerging controversies and debates, reviews current knowledge, and delineates future areas of research. Vitiello, also an adjunct professor in psychology and in biobehavioral nursing and health systems, studies the causes, consequences and treatments of age-related sleep disturbances.

Emily Culbert, second-year medical student from Greenbank, Wash., has been selected for the 1998 Janet M. Glasgow Essay Award, to be presented by the American Medical Women’s Association Nov. 19 at the group’s annual meeting in New Orleans. The national award is given for the best medical student essay on a woman physician who has been a significant mentor and role model for the essayist. Culbert described Dr. Cynthia Maung, a physician who cares for Burmese refugees in Thailand. Culbert worked with her during a six-month visit to Asia, a time when Culbert also went to Calcutta to volunteer with Mother Teresa.

Dr. Richard A. Deyo, professor of medicine and section head of General Internal Medicine at UWMC-Roosevelt, is the author of “Low-Back Pain” in the August issue of Scientific American. Up to 80 percent of all adults eventually suffer back pain. Deyo discusses advances in treatment that involve neither surgery nor bed rest.