In recognition of outstanding contributions to medicine through a commitment to public health, the Texas Medical Association’s Council on Science and Public Health is calling for nominations for the next Laurance N. Nickey, MD, Lifetime Achievement Award.
The award’s namesake physician, Dr. Nickey, chaired the Council on Science and Public Health for many years before his passing in 2018. David Lakey, MD, consultant to the council and member of the award workgroup, says the recognition is a tribute to the lifetime Dr. Nickey spent helping others.
“He is, in many ways, a godfather of public health here in Texas,” said Dr. Lakey, vice chancellor for health affairs and chief medical officer at The University of Texas System. “The award is to recognize truly exceptional members of the Texas Medical Association; physicians who, over their lifetime, not only practice medicine, but also get involved in improving the public health system.”
Dr. Nickey, an El Paso pediatrician who directed the area’s health department, promoted medicine directly in his community, in the state, across the nation, and through TMA. For that reason, the Council on Science and Public Health thought it would be most fitting for nominations to come from county medical societies and TMA councils.
While Dr. Nickey was a truly singular physician, many communities have physician leaders who similarly make a lasting difference, says Jose Manuel de la Rosa, MD, a pediatrician from El Paso on the award workgroup – and a former patient of Dr. Nickey’s. One of the joys of the award is uplifting those leaders.
"[Across various counties,] we all feel there's a local hero that has had an impact on statewide policy or even advocacy at the national level,” he said. “Those are the kind of docs that we want TMA to know about and encourage.”
Each part of the award was designed to communicate the late physician’s role as a “true leader.”
“We put together criteria; there are multiple steps in it. But then we put in examples of how Dr. Nickey embodied those criteria, so that people would get a feel of who he was,” he said. “It’s unusual that not only does the award carry his name, but the application process also serves to educate people on who he was and what he did. It keeps his memory alive.”
Nominees must meet the following criteria to be considered for this award:
- Be a TMA-member physician.
- Have a demonstrated professional focus on public health.
- Be nominated by a county medical society or a TMA council. While under no obligation to nominate, if they choose to do so, each county medical society and council may only nominate one physician.
- Have at least 10 years in medical practice.
Preview the nomination form here.
Nominations must be made via the official form and close Tuesday, Oct. 31. This is not an annual award, and a winner will only be chosen if an individual meets the criteria of lifetime achievement in public health. Only one physician has been awarded the recognition since the award’s creation in 2019, Robert Haley, MD.
Among many accomplishments, Dr. Nickey helped bring the number of mothers without perinatal care on the U.S.-Mexico border from 40% to 11%, Dr. Lakey says. He also helped organize the oral polio immunization program of the 1960s and took to Washington, D.C. to advocate for the creation of the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission, to which he was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994.
“He did tremendous work not just as a pediatrician, as a director of a health department, but by reaching outside the walls of his clinical practice and the local health department to work in policy and do fundamental things like improving polio vaccines, tuberculosis control, care of women, and addressing how to coordinate activities across the U.S.-Mexico border to improve the health of individuals on both sides,” Dr. Lakey said.
“I know there are a lot of individuals here in Texas, physicians that likewise are doing work outside of the walls of their clinic, being involved in the community and having an impact both in their community, statewide, and nationally.”
Dr. Nickey didn’t just defend his community’s health. His work set up future success for physicians who came after him, says Patsy Slaughter, executive director of El Paso County Medical Society.
“He inspired a governor to support and fund a four-year medical school in El Paso in order to ‘churn out’ physicians to serve the border communities,” she wrote in an email. “He was always taking that first leap into health issues. He was a private-practice physician that had the passion for his area to look forward to facing challenges, and the vision to reach out far and wide to make sure others were listening.”
The award celebrates not just the work of Dr. Nickey and other physicians who work in public health, but the accomplishments of TMA and organized medicine.
“Laurance Nickey was very involved in his county, working locally, and we wanted to honor that by making sure the individual was known and very well respected by the county medical society,” Dr. Lakey said. “But there are individuals whose career focus has been statewide initiatives, working with TMA, and we wanted to ensure that individuals who had risen to that leading level could be nominated too.”
He added: “The criteria [for eligibility], which are based on Dr. Nickey’s life, are very consistent with the goals of the Texas Medical Association of improving health for all Texans. The county medical societies and councils put forth good candidates that really have dedicated their life to not only taking care of people that are sick, but to addressing the factors that enable an individual to be healthy and trying to improve the health care systems in Texas."