The Clinical Teacher Award honors a career involved in teaching clinical infectious diseases to fellows, residents or medical students and recognizes excellence as a clinician and motivation to teach the next generation.
2024 Winner: Anna K. Person, MD, FIDSA
Anna K. Person, MD, FIDSA, is a steadfast educator for medical students, residents, fellows and faculty who has led or taught countless educational programs within Vanderbilt University Medical Center, regionally and nationally. As a mentor and coach, she has been a champion for empathy and equity in caring for patients, emphasizing the importance of teaching how social determinants of health intersect with infectious diseases. She models for her learners how to compassionately care and advocate for marginalized populations.
Dr. Person is a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and director of education and faculty development in the division. Along with mentoring fellows and providing career development workshops, Dr. Person has leveraged unique teaching tools such as the QuizTime asynchronous and spaced learning tool to create a board review curriculum and ongoing educational content. She also created one of the first Standardized Patient curriculums for infectious diseases fellows, an enduring curriculum that has been published and widely shared. Her professional interests include care of transgender people with HIV, HIV clinical outcomes in Latin America and health equity and advocacy.
Her past roles at Vanderbilt include director of the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program and chair of the Education Committee. As fellowship program director, she built a powerful curriculum that is now the foundation of education for infectious diseases fellows. In her role leading the Education Committee, she guided the divison’s educational mission, created standards for bedside teaching of trainees and strengthened the clinical and classroom teaching commitments of infectious diseases faculty.
A selfless teacher, Dr. Person always takes time to teach medical students, residents and fellows, pointing out nuances in diagnostic and treatment approaches. Her passion for teaching extends beyond Vanderbilt. As the former clinical director and leader of the Interprofessional Education Community of Practice for the Southeast AIDS Education and Training Center, she helped shape the HIV curriculum for health care professionals and students in nursing, medicine, dentistry, social work and pharmacy in eight Southeast states.
For IDSA’s HIV Medicine Association, Dr. Person currently serves as vice chair of the Board of Directors and as co-chair of the Health Care Access Working Group. Vanderbilt University School of Medicine has recognized Dr. Person with the Candle Award, the William Schaffner Teaching Award, and the Vanderbilt Program in Interprofessional learning Award for Outstanding Service and Leadership in Education. Also, she was inducted into the Vanderbilt Academy for Excellence in Education, and Academy for Excellence in Clinical Medicine.
IDSA is pleased to add the 2024 Clinical Teacher Award to Dr. Person’s other awards in recognition of her excellence in education and training.
Past Clinical Teacher Award Winners
| 2023 | Nigar Kirmani, MD, FIDSA |
| 2022 | Raymund Razonable, MD, FIDSA |
| 2021 | Carlos Isada, MD |
| 2020 | Stanford T. Shulman, M.D., FIDSA |
| 2019 | William L. Salzer, MD |
| 2018 | Allan R. Tunkel, MD, PhD, FIDSA |
| 2018 | Frank E. Berkowitz, MD, MPH |
| 2017 | Michael J. Barza, MD, FIDSA |
| 2016 | Rashida A. Khakoo, MD, MACP, FIDSA, FSHEA |
| 2015 | Walter R. Wilson, MD, FIDSA |
| 2014 | Nesli Basgoz, MD, FIDSA |
| 2013 | Marvin Turk, MD, FIDSA |
| 2012 | Carol A. Kauffman, MD, FIDSA Sarah S. Long, MD, FIDSA |
| 2011 | Vincent J. Quagliarello, MD, FIDSA |
| 2010 | Adolf W. Karchmer, MD, FIDSA |
| 2009 | Joshua Fierer, MD, FIDSA |
| 2008 | Larry M. Baddour, MD, FIDSA |
| 2007 | Daniel M. Musher, MD, FIDSA |
| 2006 | Hillar Vellend, MD, FIDSA |
| 2005 | John Fisher, MD, FACP |