Kevin C. Chung, MD, MS, the Charles B.G. De Nancrede Professor of Surgery, Plastic Surgery and Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Michigan (U of M) Medical School, Ann Arbor, will receive the 2020 Dr. Rodman E. Sheen and Thomas G. Sheen Award, which has been presented annually since 1968 to honor outstanding contributions to the medical profession. The Sheen Award honors a full-time working physician involved in ongoing and promising teaching and medical research. Philanthropist Thomas G. Sheen, of Atlantic City, NJ, created a perpetual trust “to further the study of medicine and to compensate an outstanding Doctor of Medicine Science in the United States each year.”
Dr. Chung will receive the award and be a featured speaker at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) New Jersey Chapter annual meeting in April 2021.
A renowned hand surgeon and researcher
Dr. Chung, the chief of hand surgery for Michigan Medicine and director of its Comprehensive Hand Center, is a world-renowned hand surgeon and researcher who has been involved in leading academic research for much of his career. He has published more than 640 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 350 book chapters, and 27 textbooks. He is editor-in-chief of Grabb and Smith’s Plastic Surgery, 8th Edition, the standard textbook for the specialty. He has more than 20 years of continuous National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and was the principal investigator of an R01 grant for a multicenter clinical study on the rheumatoid hand that received a competitive renewal, and another R01 grant on a 20-center clinical trial for the treatment of distal radius fracture in the elderly. He had received a 10-year K24 Midcareer Investigator Grant in Patient-Oriented Research and is a co-principal investigator of a 20-year T32 training grant in health services research. He held a U34 grant from the NIH in planning a clinical trial in treating ulnar neuropathy at the elbow, and has received a R34 Clinical Trial Planning grant and a R21 Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Award from the NIH. He has a U01 grant from the NIH to conduct a 10-center Surgery of the Ulnar Nerve clinical trial.
Other career highlights
Dr. Chung serves as the 2020 president of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, the largest hand surgery organization in the world, with a membership of more than 4,000 from the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Chung was a director for the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery and served as the treasurer/secretary for the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He was the past-president of the Plastic Surgery Foundation, the academic arm of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, with over 10,000 members.
Dr. Chung has been recognized for his work many times in his career. He was the first recipient of the Andrew J. Weiland Medal from the American Society for Surgery of the Hand to honor a hand surgeon whose research work advanced the specialty. He was the 2011 Researcher of the Year for the American Association of Plastic Surgeons. In 2008, he received the Dean’s Award from the U of M Medical Dr. Chung School for Clinical and Health Services Research that is bestowed on one faculty member for outstanding research accomplishments.
The Sheen Award
The Sheen Award honors a full-time working physician involved in ongoing and promising teaching and medical research. Today, the New Jersey-based Sheen Advisory Committee selects the nominees whose names are submitted by the vice-president/trust officer of the Bank of America, N.A. The advisory committee comprises 10 to 12 physicians. All committee members are from southern New Jersey, where the Sheen family lived and worked. S. Stuart Mally, MD, FACS, the 1992 recipient of the ACS Distinguished Service Award, served as the original chair of the committee. A stipulation of the award is that a national medical organization serve as a consultant in the selection process.
Since 1982, the ACS Honors Committee has developed the annual list of nominees and recommended candidates.
Nominees for the award must be medical research pioneers doing ongoing work of the highest quality. They must be involved in teaching and research in medicine and should not be retired or semi-retired, so that the award will be applied to future scientific work.
The ACS Honors Committee accepts nominations for the Sheen Award and several other prestigious ACS awards throughout the year. Read more about how to submit nominations.
