The inaugural Fairfield County Doctors of Distinction Awards drew a full-house crowd of 150 to Norwalk recently, including U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and the founding dean of the Quinnipiac University School of Medicine, Dr. Bruce Koeppen, who said he was told to throw away the book to make the now 1-year-old Hamden school or not to bother at all.
The event founders were the Fairfield County Business Journal, accounting, consulting and assurance firm Citrin Cooperman and the state-chartered Fairfield County Medical Association, which used a half-hour before the awards for its annual parliamentary meeting. Bridgeport Hospital sponsored the evening at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum. The event marked the first time in the medical association”™s 222-year history that it had collaborated with a newspaper on an event.
The mansion”™s domed rotunda was filled with powerhouse physicians and legislators. The lively, catered event was silenced several times by the stories from the podium: of helping an abused child through a locally created program and of relieving anxiety that ripens quickly with sick children.
Dr. Edward Volpintesta, winner of the Leadership in Medical Advocacy Award, identified himself as a fighter for better treatment of doctors through legislative reform. “You have leaders and warriors,” he said. “I don”™t consider myself a leader. I consider myself a warrior.”
Volpintesta became visibly emotional in describing his Stamford youth and how he came to a 40-year career in medicine. The family doctor, he explained, would come to his house when he or his two brothers ”” including his needle-phobic brother Frank ”” were sick. “He was a big, happy guy,” Volpintesta said. “And when he walked in the house, you could see the anxiety leave my mother”™s face.” He paused while the plucking of every heartstring in the room, including his own, played out quietly. “And I wanted to be a hero like him. I wanted to be an average doctor and try to relieve some of that misery we all know when someone is sick.”
“All the Fairfield County doctors are doctors of distinction,” said Robin Oshman, a dermatologist with a Ph.D. in microbiology who is president of the association and who served as master of ceremonies.
The Doctors of Distinction categories and winners included the Humanitarian Award to Richard J. Garvey, general surgery, Bridgeport; the Lifetime Achievement Award to Jeanne M. Marconi, pediatrics, Norwalk; the Leadership in Medical Advocacy Award to Edward Volpintesta, family physician, Bethel; the Excellence in Medical Research Award to Beverly J. Drucker, medical oncology, Greenwich; and the Community Service Award to Darcy I. Lowell, pediatrics and founder of the national Child First program in Bridgeport, whose son, third-year Yale School of Medicine student Matthew Meizlish, stood in for her.
“I”™m also on a Ph.D. track,” Meizlish said while accepting the award, “so I”™ll be in medical school forever.” He offered an anecdote of his mother”™s profound impact on lives through her Child First activities: a woman whose son was being abused and who would have had nowhere to turn without the program.
In turn, the Medical Association offered honors of its own, lauding a number of legislators for their medical-centric efforts, including Blumenthal and members of state government: Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton; Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport; Sen. Anthony Musto, D-Trumbull; Rep. Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton; Rep. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield; Rep. Daniel Carter, R-Bethel; and Rep. Prasad Srinivasan, R-Glastonbury.
Koeppen, dean of the new Frank H. Netter M.D. School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, said admission numbers to the school are up. For the school”™s first class of 60 in August 2013, there were 2,000 applications. For 90 slots in August 2014, there were 5,200 applications. And for next year, the school has already fielded 7,000 applications.
Koeppen, with 34 years in academic medicine, said four years ago he was the school”™s only employee, possessing only a phone and a computer. “These last four years, building this medical school, is the most fun I”™ve had in my life.” He said that he received marching orders at a conference of new medical school administrators. “If you build it to look like existing medical schools, you will have failed your university and your country.” He said the nation faces a 100,000-doctor deficit by 2020. “Forty percent of doctors are baby boomers and one-third of those will retire in the next 10 years,” he said.
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