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August 1999
Volume 63 |
Number 8
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| Harry H. Bird,
M.D., Receives 1998 Distinguished Service Award |
William D. Owens, M.D,Chair
1999 Committee on Distinguished Service Award
The American Society of Anesthesiologists' Distinguished Service
Award (DSA) is the highest honor the Society can bestow upon an
individual. It honors an individual for lifetime achievements
and service in the specialty of anesthesiology and to the Society
itself. Any ASA member or component society may nominate an ASA
member for this award. The nominations are reviewed by the Committee
on Distinguished Service Award. The Committee, by secret ballot,
can then select one individual to place in nomination at the House
of Delegates where the individual must receive a two-thirds vote
of those seated in the House of Delegates to be named a recipient
of the DSA.
Because of the actions of the House of Delegates, the
1998 Distinguished Service Award will be presented to Harry H.
Bird, M.D., during the 1999 ASA Annual
Meeting in Dallas, Texas, on Monday, October, 11, 1999. The
presentation will immediately precede the E.A. Rovenstine Lecture
in the Dallas Convention Center.
Dr. Bird's career is distinguished by his service to our
specialty and the public at large. He is a native of Massachusetts
and received his anesthesiology training at the U.S. Naval Hospital,
Chelsea, Massachusetts, the New England Deaconess Hospital and
the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston. He served in
the U.S. Navy (1957-64) and as Chief of Anesthesia at both the
Chelsea, Massachusetts and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina Naval
Hospitals.
Following his military duty, Dr. Bird joined the department
at Mary Hitchcock Clinic and the faculty at Dartmouth Medical
School in 1964, where he served as Section Chair of Anesthesiology
(1973-83). He subsequently became the only anesthesiologist to
be selected as the President of Hitchcock Clinic, an office he
held for five years (1983-88). He is currently a Professor Emeritus
of Anesthesiology at Dartmouth Medical School.
Dr. Bird was a member of the Board of Directors of the
American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) (1973-85) and served as
its President (1982-83). During this time, he served on the ABA-ASA
Joint Council on In-Training Examinations and the ABA-ASA-AMA
Joint Committee. He also served on the Residency Review Committee
of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for
10 years and served as its Chair in 1983-84. He was also on the
Board of Governors of the American College of Anesthesiologists
(1971-74).
The New Hampshire/Vermont Society of Anesthesiologists
benefited from Dr. Bird's dedication to organized medicine early
in his career. This state component elected him to the Board of
Directors of ASA in 1969. After being a success in that position,
he was elected ASA Assistant Treasurer and then Treasurer for
a total of 14 years prior to being elected ASA First Vice-President
(1986), ASA President-Elect (1987) and ASA President (1988). He
has also served the members of this Society by active participation
as a chair or member of numerous committees (too numerous to list)
including, after his term as President, Chair of the Committee
on Building and the Chair of the Task Force on Governance. The
former culminated in our beautiful and practical headquarters
building in Park Ridge, Illinois, and the latter position led
the Society to establish a strategic plan and to study the possibility
of a change of governance structure.
Dr. Bird has represented our specialty in the public sector
as well. He has served as Moderator of Town Meetings in Hanover,
New Hampshire, for 24 years. The town recognized his services
in 1985 by naming him the Citizen of the Year. He was appointed
a Trustee of the University of New Hampshire in 1989 and, since
1995, has been the Chair of the Board of Directors of the University
of New Hampshire System. In 1990, he was appointed Commissioner
of the Department of Health and Human Services by the Governor
of New Hampshire - the first anesthesiologist to ever serve in
that capacity.
It is obvious that Harry H. Bird, M.D., has represented
our specialty extremely well as a clinician, teacher, leader in
organized medicine and public servant. He is the consummate physician
citizen.
William D. Owens, M.D., is Professor of
Anesthesiology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, and
past ASA President (1998).
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