Biographies of the 2012 Laureate Award Honorees

In 2012, the Texas Chapter presented its highest award to three distinguished members - Michael Emmett, MD, MACP; Mark Feldman, MD, MACP; andHerbert L. Fred, MD, MACP.

The Laureate Award honors Fellows and Masters of the ACP who have demonstrated by their example and conduct an abiding commitment to excellence in medical care, education, or research, and in service to their community, the Chapter, and the ACP.

Michael Emmett, MD, MACP

Dr. Michael Emmett was born a “Stateless Refugee” in the Bindermichel Displaced Persons camp near Linz, Austria on October 29, 1945. Most of his extended family and a sister had been murdered by the Nazi death machine. He, his surviving sister, and parents immigrated to the USA when he was four years old, eventually settling in Philadelphia. Dr. Emmett graduated Magna Cum Laude from Penn State University and then from Temple University Medical School, where he was first in his class and the president of the Alpha Omega Alpha chapter. His internship and residency were both at Yale-New Haven Hospital and he then completed a nephrology fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. As a renal fellow he developed a major interest in electrolyte and acid-base disorders. He co-authored “Clinical Use of the Anion Gap” (Medicine, 1976) with Dr. Robert Narins, which became a classic for medical students and housestaff and launched what some have referred to as the “cult of the anion gap”. Dr. Emmett joined Dallas Nephrology Associates in 1976. He has spent his entire career at Baylor University Medical Center, where he partnered with Dr. Martin G. White. He also became a major educator of residents and students at BUMC and started the first formal “Morning Report” conference for that residency program. His other major mentor, co-investigator, co-author and role model was Dr. John Fordtran, who appointed Dr. Emmett the Tompsett Professor of Medicine and Chief of Nephrology in 1986. In 1996 he succeeded Dr. Fordtran as BUMC’s Chairman of Internal Medicine and training program director.

Dr. Emmett has served BUMC in many capacities including President of the medical staff (1994) and membership on the Medical Board and the Medical Executive Committee. He is a Professor of medicine at Texas A&M and a Clinical Professor at UTSW. Dr. Emmett has been very active in national and international nephrology professional organizations (ASN, NKF, ISN) and was the NKF’s VP for Professional Education. He speaks regularly at national meetings and participates in multiple courses offered by these organizations. He has served as a member of the ABIM’s Nephrology Subspecialty Committee and was the nephrology representative to the ABIM’s General Medicine Examination Committee. He frequently lectures at local, state, national and international ACP meetings and courses. He actively supports the Texas ACP Chapter. Dr. Emmett has been a visiting professor at multiple institutions including the MGH, BI, the Brigham, Brown University, University of Indiana, University of Wisconsin, and Temple University. He is a regular reviewer for multiple professional periodicals, a co-editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, Clinical Journal of American Society of Nephrology, Clinical Nephrology and Proceedings of the BUMC. He is the author of many of fluid, electrolyte and acid base articles. He writes and co-edits those topics for UpToDate.

Dr. Emmett has gained a well-deserved reputation as an excellent diagnostician and internist. He is listed in Best Doctors in Dallas (D-Magazine), Super Doctors Texas (Texas Monthly), and Best Doctors in USA. Consistently regarded as a master teacher, his lectures to residents and medical students are legendary. The ACP awarded him a Mastership in 2001 on the basis of his work as an educator, clinical investigator, and his service to ACP. Dr. Emmett is married to Rachel Emmett and they are the proud parents of three children – Mira, an attorney in Atlanta, Ga.; Daniel, a gastroenterologist in Austin, married to Ashleigh; and Joshua, an anesthesiology resident at UTSW, married to Nicole. Dr. and Mrs. Emmett are also the proud grandparents of six grandchildren: Zachary, Ella, Natalie, Joseph, Isaac, and Leah Jayne.

The Texas Chapter of ACP is pleased to bestow its Laureate Award for 2012, on Michael Emmett, MD, MACP.

Mark Feldman, MD, MACP

Dr. Mark Feldman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 14, 1947. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Temple University, where he also completed medical school in 1972 as a member of Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. Dr. Feldman then served as Resident and Chief Medical Resident at Temple. Following an NIH Research Fellowship in Gastroenterology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, he joined the UT Southwestern Internal Medicine faculty in the Gastroenterology Division, where he rose to the rank of Professor in 1985. From 1988 to 2001 he served as Chief, Medical Service, Veterans Affairs North Texas Health Care System and Vice Chair, Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern. In 1997 he was honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award by Temple University School of Medicine.

In 2001, Dr. Feldman changed his career path to become the William Tschumy Chairman of Internal Medicine at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, where he also is Medical Director of Research and Director of the Internal Medicine Residency program. He continues his allegiance to UT Southwestern as a Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine.

Ever dedicated to medical research, Dr. Feldman's signal achievements include 187 peer reviewed publications and 66 book chapters, with special interest in gastric diseases as well as a range of other topics. He has been an editor or consulting editor for prestigious clinical and research medical journals, including Scientific American Medicine, Current Therapeutic Topics in Gastroenterology, American Journal of Medicine, ACP Medicine, and many others. He is the senior co-editor of Sleisenger and Fordtran's Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease, the leading textbook of Gastroenterology. Dr. Feldman is a member of numerous professional societies and is a Fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology and the American Gastroenterology Association.

Dr. Feldman is widely known for his commitment to medical education. He has received a number of Outstanding Teacher awards from resident and gastroenterology fellow classes at UT Southwestern and Presbyterian Hospital. He has served with the American Board of Internal Medicine as a Board member and more recently as Chairman of the Gastroenterology Board.

Dr. Feldman's dedication to and value for the American College of Physicians and its Texas Chapter are readily apparent and enduring. He most enjoyed his membership on the ACP In-Training Examination Committee for three years. Dr. Feldman has also been an editor for MKSAP 13 and MKSAP Prep for Boards II, and he was Associate Editor for Gastroenterology for ACP Medicine from 2004 to 2009. As Chairman of Internal Medicine at Presbyterian Hospital, he has been a constant mentor for his residents to produce highly sophisticated and competitive oral and poster presentations for ACP Associates Day. In recognition for his distinguished career and contributions to ACP, he was awarded Mastership in ACP in 2008.

Barbara and Mark Feldman married in 1969 and have raised three children together, one of whom has followed his father's path in internal medicine. They bothadore their five grandchildren. After his dedication to his family, Dr. Feldman enjoysgolf, swimming, and reading.

The Texas Chapter of ACP is pleased to bestow its Laureate Award for 2012, on Mark Feldman, MD, MACP.

Herbert L. Fred, MD, MACP

Dr. Herbert L. Fred is a native Texan and was born in Waco on June 11, 1929. He graduated valedictorian from his high school and entered Rice Institute in Houston in 1946. Dr. Fred matriculated to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed his post-graduate training at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City where he was Chief Medical Resident. Dr. Fred trained under Dr. Maxwell Wintrobe and became a life-long friend of Dr. William Bennett Bean. Both Drs. Wintrobe and Bean are considered giants in the field of medicine. Dr. Fred served as Captain in the US Medical Corp of the United States Air Force. He returned to Houston in 1962 and became renowned in a long and illustrious career in medical education. He was Associate Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and transitioned to Director of Medical Education at St. Joseph Hospital in 1969. He became Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston Texas in 1971. Dr. Fred’s administrative skills are formidable and he was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the HCA Medical Center Hospital as well as President of the Houston Congregation for Reform Judaism. He currently serves as an officer of the Friends of the Texas Medical Center Library Board. Dr. Fred has been an invited lecturer and visiting professor all over the world including the United States, Canada, China, Switzerland and Italy.

Dr. Fred has won innumerable teaching awards and has a society named in his honor: The Herb Fred Medical Society. This society is a corporation established by his trainees in 2002 to honor his legacy of education. He recently was the inaugural speaker at the annual Herbert L. Fred Visiting Professorship in Medical Education at the Institute for Excellence in Education of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 1988, Dr. Fred was honored by President Ronald Reagan with a citation for his twenty seven years as a medical educator in Houston, Texas. Dr. Fred has authored over four hundred scholarly articles in medical journals, authored or co-authored five medical books, six chapters in medical texts and one novel. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Texas Heart Institute Journal. Dr. Fred has served as a reviewer or editor for many scholarly journals including Southern Medical Journal, Chest, JAMA, Circulation, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Annals of Sports Medicine and many others. In 2004 he received his Mastership and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the American College of Physicians. Dr. Fred has personally dedicated his career of sixty years to full-time medical education.

Dr. Fred’s interest in athletics has garnered him a position as Adjunct Professor, Human Performance and Health Sciences at his alma mater, Rice University. He is an avid runner and has jogged an equivalent distance from the Earth to the Moon…he has personally logged 246,592 miles as of Sept. 30, 2012! Dr. Fred lives in Houston with his wife Judy and they have seven children.

The Texas Chapter of the American College of Physicians is proud to honor Herb L. Fred, MD, MACP as a Laureate for 2012.