Alumni Weekend

Dear Alumni(ae),

I was pleased to see so many of you at Medical Alumni Weekend this past September. I'd like to offer a formal thank you for all the good wishes I received as I began my tenure as your Medical Alumni Association President.

This year we presented the Alumni Award of Honor to Charles R. Underwood, 48C, 52M, and the Distinguished Medical Achievement Award to John E. Skandalakis, 62G, director and Chris Carlos Distinguished Professor of Surgical Anatomy and Technique at Emory. Other highlights included a lecture from Jeffrey P. Koplan, MD, PhD, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on "Health Policy in Changing Times," a tour of Grady, and a presentation by the chiefs of service for medicine, surgery, emergency medicine, gynecology/obstetrics, and pediatrics.

Remember, it's not too soon to begin identifying candidates for next year's alumni awards. And I look forward to seeing you next September 22-24, as our association moves into the new century.

W. Jefferson Pendergrast Jr., MD, 72M
President, Medical Alumni Association





The more than 250 School of Medicine graduates who attended the annual Medical Alumni Association awards dinner on September 25 witnessed the group's Award of Honor being presented to Charles R. Underwood, 48C, 52M, a surgeon from Marietta, Ga.

Underwood's surgical career has spanned more than 40 years. Classmate and Marietta colleague Noah D. Meadows, 49C, 52M, has known Underwood since their undergraduate days and says he is what Sir William Osler called "the complete physician -- an individual of total honor and integrity."

A native of Russellville, Ala., Underwood is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of the AMA, the Medical Association of Georgia, and the American Cancer Society. In 1987 he received the latter organization's Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Control of Cancer. He served as president of Emory's Medical Alumni Association in the 1960s and sat on the Board of Directors of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Georgia from 1973 to 1997. He also served as editor of the Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia from 1986 to 1992.

In 1984, Underwood was named to the Board of Trustees of the Georgia Hospital Association and in 1997 was elected chairman of that board. In this role, Underwood has earned plaudits for his efforts to keep the viewpoint of doctors in front of hospital administrators and to improve relations between doctor organizations and hospital organizations.

The Award for Distinguished Medical Achievement went to John E. Skandalakis, 62G, director and Chris Carlos Distinguished Professor of Surgical Anatomy and Technique at Emory's Centers for Surgical Anatomy and Technique. Skandalakis earned his MD from the University of Athens, Greece, in 1946 and came to Atlanta in 1950 as a fellow at Grady Hospital and an instructor in anatomy at the School of Medicine. Although he has taught, written, and researched nonstop since then, he also found time to earn a PhD in anatomy from the graduate school in 1962, to direct the surgical and medical education programs and postgraduate education program at Piedmont Hospital for 20 years beginning in 1957, and to serve as a leader for numerous professional societies and journals.

Skandalakis's most visible contribution to Emory medicine is the spectacular Byzantine mosaic in the plaza of the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center Administration Building. Dr. Skan, as he is known, has long had a special love for the history of medicine, and the idea of this mosaic had germinated within him for more than 25 years, since he had first met Sirio Tonelli, a mosaic artist who created a series of elaborate mosaics at Atlanta's Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation.

"I wanted us in the health sciences to have the beauty of such a mosaic and to have these giants of the past nearby to help us," Skandalakis said at the work's dedication in 1996. The mosaic incorporates more than 2 million mosaic chips in some 3,000 hues to depict great moments in health care history. In previous years, Skandalakis had also donated the statues of Hippocrates and Asclepius and the busts of Hygeia, Galen, and Aristotle that are located in the plaza.




Outgoing Medical Alumni Association
President Maggie Mermin, 77M, congratu-
lated John Skandalakis on winning the
Distinguished Medical Achievement Award.




The Award of Honor went to surgeon
Charles R. Underwood (2nd from right) who
was joined by his wife Eleanor (center)
and their family at the fall ceremony.

 


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