Biographies of the 2015 Laureate Award Honorees

In 2015, the Texas Chapter presented its highest award to three distinguished members - Phillip T. Cain, MD, FACP; Robert Haley, MD, FACP; andLysbeth (Beth) W. Miller, 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.

 

Phillip T. Cain, MD, FACP

As a native Texan, I was born and raised in Hereford, Texas in the Texas Panhandle. I went to Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX for college and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1971. I then attended medical school at UTMB in Galveston, TX, graduating in 1974 with Honors and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha in my senior year.

Following a rotating internship at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, I then completed residency in Internal Medicine at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple in 1978. I joined the faculty in a new division of Community Internal Medicine in 1978, and continued there until my retirement in 2012.

Soon after joining the faculty at Scott & White, I was given the opportunity to be the first Assistant Dean for Student Affairs for a new medical school partnership between S&W and Texas A&M. This started me on a path for a career as a clinician educator. The next opportunity along this line came in 1985 when I assumed the role of Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program for Texas A&M/Scott & White, and continued in that role for the next 18 years. I received the Best Teacher Award in 1987 and 1995.

It was in this role of residency program Director that I had the opportunity to begin working with the leaders of the Texas Chapter ACP, and was elected to the Board of Directors. I was able to meet education leaders throughout the state in the Texas Chapter of the ACP. Many were excellent role models and mentors for me in helping develop my career as a clinician educator. One of the projects that was of great  importance to us at that time was to improve membership among medical students and Internal Medicine residents in the ACP, and encourage their involvement in the Annual Texas Chapter meeting. Those efforts were successfully as evidence by a strong presence of medical students and residents of the schedule for the annual meeting for many years now.

In addition to the above roles, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to serve in several other administrative and leadership roles at TAMU/S&W. I served as Division Director of a growing division of Community Internal Medicine from 1983-1994. I also served as Vice-chair of the Department of Internal Medicine from 1994-2012.

I was elected to the Board of Directors for Scott & White Clinic in 1993, and served until 2006. I was Vice-chair of the Board of Directors from 2000-2006. My wife Susan and I have been married for 43 years, live in Belton, TX and have 4 children and 3 grandchildren.

The Texas Chapter of ACP is pleased to bestow its Laureate Award for 2015, on Phillip Cain, MD, FACP

Robert Haley, MD, FACP
Dr. Haley’s career in medicine can be split into three segments:his 10-year stint at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, his return to Dallas and the establishment of the epidemiology department at UTSW, and his research into Gulf War syndrome.

Dr. Haley served as a commissioned officer at the CDC from 1973 to 1983, where he conducted extensive research on the epidemiology and prevention of hospital acquired (nosocomial) infections to improve the quality of hospital care. CDC recognized this research as one of its four most important accomplishments during its 50th anniversary celebration.

In 1983, Dr. Haley and his family (wife, Stephanie, and children Clinton, Carl and Charlotte) returned to Dallas, where he founded the division of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at UTSW.

Dr. Haley’s Gulf War syndrome research, which began in 1994 and was funded initially by the Perot Foundation, has sought to understand the nature and causes of the syndrome in veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. After three landmark publications of initial findings in the Jan. 15, 1997, Journal of the American Medical Association, he conducted a brain research program, funded through the US Department of Defense, to work out the mechanisms of brain injury in veterans and identify tests and treatments for the illness. Key scientific publications reported a genetic predisposition to Gulf War syndrome that appears to link the illness to nerve gas exposure, brain cell injury in deep brain structures identified by advanced brain imaging, abnormal brain dopamine production, and dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. His investigation uncovered an excess of Lou Gehrig’s disease in young Gulf War veterans. Under a $33 million congressional award, he is conducting a national survey and a large brain imaging program to explain additional aspects of the illness and to develop a diagnostic approach and treatment.

In 2003 Dr. Haley coordinated UTSW’s initiative related to defense against bioterrorism and emerging infectious disease threats.

The Texas Chapter of the ACP is pleased to bestow its Laureate Award for 2015, on Robert Haley, MD, FACP

Lysbeth (Beth) W. Miller, MD, MACP 
Dr. Miller attended medical school at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas and completed her residency in internal medicine at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Dr. Miller spent an additional year in Chapel Hill as Chief Resident. In 1983, Dr. Miller returned to Austin Texas where she has resided since then.

Dr. Miller is the Program Director for the University of Texas Southwestern Austin Internal Medicine Residency Program. She is one of the residency program
directors with the longest tenure in the country (since 1992), and she has been quite successful at it in terms of the program’s growth and academic standing. Dr. Miller was the first Austin-based faculty member to receive the rank of associate professor.

Dr. Miller has been an active member of the American College of Physicians since the 1980s and has continuously participated in the resident’s regional meeting and the state’s chapter meetings. Dr. Miller has been recognized in numerous occasions for delivering excellent patient care, for outstanding teaching, and for her involvement with the community.

The Texas Chapter of the ACP is pleased to recognize her recent achievement of Mastership in the American College of Physicians and to bestow its Laureate Award for 2015, on Beth Miller, MD, MACP.