John P. McGovern Award

The John P. McGovern Award was established in 1982 by the Southwest Chapter of the American Medical Writers Association to recognize excellence in the field of medical communications.

The award is named for John P. McGovern, MD, founder and director of the McGovern Allergy Clinic in Houston and a noted educator, author, and historian. Dr. McGovern was a past member of the Southwest Chapter of AMWA and was an AMWA Fellow from 1967 until his death in 2007.

The award is presented at the January Chapter banquet meeting.

Year	Recipient	Lecture topic
2012	Walter Baile, MD, and Cathy Kirkwood, MPH	I*CARE (Interpersonal Communication and Relationship Enhancement): Learning and Teaching Communication Skills
2011	Mauro Ferrari, PhD	Perspectives in Nanomedicine
2010	Megan Cole	For the Love of Words: a Medical Writer’s Story on Stage
2009	Lawrence K. Altman, MD	Who Goes First? The Story of Self-Experimentation in Medicine
2008	Stuart C. Yudofsky, MD	The Impact of Stigmatization on the Mentally Ill
2007	Steve Sternberg	Covering the Plague: AIDS, the Press, and a Personal Journey
2006	Barbara Gastel, MD, MPH	Educating Medical Writers and Editors: Adventures on Two Continents
2005	Alan Blum, MD	Memoirs of a Medical Activist
2004	Robert E. Rakel, MD	Compassion and the Art of Medicine: The Role of the Humanities in a Caring Profession
2003	Robin Marantz Henig	Turning Science Into Stories: The Limits of Narrative Nonfiction
2002	Paula L. Knudson	The Minefields Surrounding Informed Consent for Research
2001	Walter Pagel, ELS(D)	Not Just the Facts, Ma'am: Ideas for Engaging Readers in the Story of Your Science
2000	Dorothy Nelkin	Bar-coded Bodies: Commercialization of Body Tissue in the Biotechnology Age
1999	Anne Hudson Jones, PhD	Words and Their Magic: Language, Literature, and Medicine
1998	Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD	Moods
1997	Abraham Verghese, MD	Searching for Meaning
1996	John H. Lienhard, PhD	Communication Revolution: A Promise of Social Upheaval
1995	Paul M. Raeburn	Truth, Justice, and the American Way--Covering Medical News for the Associated Press
1994	Ruth Doyle SoRelle	My Experiences as a Medical Writer, or How The Reader's Digest Cured My Father's Gout
1993	John Stone, MD	The Human Encounter in Medicine
1992	John C. Bailar, III, MD, PhD	Communication in Science: Messages Sent, Messages Received
1991	Jane E. Brody	Medicine and Media: Pushing a Pound of Prevention Without Public Confusion
1990	Bruce B. Dan, MD	Media Medical Reporting: Its Liabilities, Ethical Hazards, and Moral Conflicts
1989	Randy Shilts	(lecture untitled)
1988	Jeffrey R. Lyon	Playing God in the Nursery
1987	Edward Huth, MD	New Technology and the Future of Medical Publishing
1986	Oliver W. Sacks, BM, BCh	(lecture untitled)
1985	Richard A. Seltzer, MD	The Surgeon as Writer
1984	Donald Radcliffe	Communication: The Author-Editor-Reader Continuum
1983	Edith Schwager	(keynote address, First AMWA Southwest Chapter Conference)