John Voss, MD, a professor of medicine in the Division of General, Geriatric, Palliative and Hospital Medicine and the Department of Medicine’s vice chair for quality and safety, has been appointed to the William Parson Professorship in Teaching Excellence. The five-year appointment was announced by School of Medicine dean David Wilkes last April, and received final approved at the June meeting of UVA’s Board of Visitors.
Dr. Voss, who has been a member of UVA’s faculty since 1999, serves as director of education for the UVA Health System’s Institute for Quality and Patient Safety. He developed the CHESS interactive tool for teaching health economics, and was a lead participant in developing ACT (Achieving Competency Today), a web-based learning management system for teaching principles of practice-based learning and systems-based practice.
Dr. Voss also developed and directs the QSLAM course, which teaches quality and safety principles to Department of Medicine faculty and staff and to residents in Internal Medicine.
The Parson professorship is named for former Department of Medicine chair William Parson, an eminent teacher, physician and researcher. He served as DOM chair from 1949 to 1967, a period of enormous growth for the department’s faculty and teaching program. (When Dr. Parson arrived, DOM had a total of six faculty members; by the time he stepped down there were more than 40.)
DOM chair Mitch Rosner commented: “Dr. Voss carries on the tradition established by Dr. Parson of departmental teaching at the highest level. Dr. Voss has been a leader in teaching the principles of health care quality and patient safety and his impact is felt throughout the Health System. This honor is well deserved and we are proud of his accomplishments.”
The William Parson Professorship was created by a group of former students and colleagues in “recognition of Dr. Parson’s inspired teaching .. and to celebrate the importance of teaching the medical sciences throughout the world.”*
*Thorner MO, Gibson R. William Parson: 1926-2004. Trans Am Clin Climatol Assoc. 2006; 117: liii–lvii. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1500932/
Filed Under: Notable Achievements