Hernandez honored as Distinguished Clinical Teacher
Dr. Jonathan Hernandez, a surgical oncologist with the Surgical Oncology Program in the National Cancer Institute, was presented the NIH 2021 Distinguished Clinical Teacher Award (DCTA). The award is the highest honor bestowed on an NIH senior investigator, staff clinician or tenure-track investigator. As the 2021 DCTA awardee, Hernandez will deliver the John Laws Memorial Lecture in June 2022.
As a DCTA winner, Hernandez exemplifies the ideal qualities of a mentor, teacher, clinician and researcher. He specializes in the treatment of pancreatic tumors and tumors of the liver and bile ducts and his research aims to improve treatment of some of the most aggressive and hard to treat gastrointestinal malignancies, including pancreatic cancer, metastatic colorectal cancer and hepatocellular cancers.
Dr. Stephanie Kubala, co-chair of the NIH Clinical Center's Clinical Fellow's Committee made the presentation and read a clinical fellow's comment, "[Hernandez] is everything one could wish for in a mentor/teacher/educator. He is incredibly approachable, thorough and thoughtful in teaching style, constantly involving fellows in every aspect of clinical care, both inside the OR and outside, and allows for appropriate autonomy and thought process formation, with guiding input where necessary to develop as a trainee. He is truly a rarity and wholly deserves recognition."
The presentation of the award preceded the annual CC Grand Rounds John Laws Decker Memorial Lecture. Last year's DCTA winner, Dr. Charles Natanson, a senior investigator with the Clinical Center's Critical Care Medicine Department, presented the lecture entitled "Mechanistic Insights into Cell-free Hemoglobin-Induced Injury During Red Blood Cell Transfusion and Infection." View the lecture and award presentation.
- Mickey Hanlon