MITSS Honors Thomas Gallagher, MD, with HOPE Award at Annual Dinner
Among the events I look forward to each fall, the MITSS Annual Dinner holds a special place because of the loyal and diverse community of people who gather to support and celebrate the work of Linda Kenney, Winnie Tobin, and many others who pursue the MITSS mission, to “support healing and restore hope to patients, families, and clinicians impacted by adverse medical events.” At this year’s dinner (the 11th annual), held Thurs., Nov. 29, in Boston, MITSS honored Thomas Gallagher, MD, with the HOPE Award, given each year to Honor Outstanding People Everywhere who have furthered MITSS’s mission. Sanjay Malaviya, president and CEO of RL Solutions, the award sponsor, presented Dr. Gallagher with this year’s honor.
Dr. Gallagher is a professor of medicine and professor of bioethics & humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington. He has authored more than 70 articles, book chapters, and books on the topic of error disclosure, bringing to bear his training in medicine and bioethics and his practical experience working with patients and clinicians following adverse events. He has led efforts to develop and validate tools to measure patient and provider ratings of the quality of actual disclosures, and is working with healthcare organizations across the country to implement these tools. Dr. Gallagher’s work is especially noteworthy for his ability to promote collaboration across key stakeholders who have not traditionally been involved in efforts to improve response to injury, such as plaintiff attorneys and regulators. By incorporating the entire spectrum of voices, his work has helped to accelerate the pace of change, helping to meet the needs of all those involved in medical injury. For more information about Dr. Gallagher’s work, click here.
I join MITSS and RL Solutions in congratulating Dr. Gallagher on this well-deserved honor and commending the other worthy nominees for the 2012 HOPE Award. MITSS’s independent selection committee reports that this was the most competitive field to date, showcasing exceptional quality work being done across the country.