Yale Residents and Fellows Honored for Achievements in Clinical Teaching

The 2024 Dr. Peggy Bia Award for Outstanding Clinical Teaching was announced at Medical Grand Rounds on January 11, 2024, for which residents and fellows were nominated by current medical students at the end of their clerkship rotations.

Angela Kang-Giaimo, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine (general medicine) and director of the Internal Medicine clerkship, highlighted the spirit of the award, stating, "Dr. Peggy Bia was a tireless advocate of medical education at Yale and known as an outstanding teacher who served as director of Clinical Skills for 15 years. In doing so, she cultivated caring and a love of doctoring in a generation of medical graduates from Yale. This award, named in her honor, is granted annually to an intern, resident, and fellow who, in their dedication to teaching students during the Internal Medicine Clerkship, embody the spirit of pedagogy central to the mission of the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale." The award was the product of clerkship students themselves seeking to highlight the excellent trainee teachers they encountered at Yale. Diane Zhao, Co-President of the YSM Class of 2025 presented the awards on behalf of her classmates.

This year’s winners of the Dr. Peggy Bia Award are:

• PGY-1 winner: Ramya Sampath, MD (hospital resident)
• PGY-2/3 winner: Mary White, MD (hospital resident)
• Fellow winner: Larry Kogan, MD (fellow, digestive diseases)

Sampath remarked on the benefits of working side by side with students, saying “I think one of the best parts of medicine is not only the rich community focused on medical education, but also being able to have multi-generational teams in training with the same shared goals of both learning and caring for patients.”

White described being motivated by the partnership in internal medicine. “I was inspired to do internal medicine because it is so team-based, with a culture of wanting to work together to solve problems.” She highlighted that this team-based culture has influenced her approach to teaching students. “I wanted to be like the people who taught me because they were so inspiring…medical students bring so much to the team, and provide a different perspective that motivates me to want to inspire them in the same way I had been towards internal medicine.”

Kogan drew inspiration for his approach to teaching from the guidance he received from previous mentors. He also described some of the current resources that help him to develop his teaching skills, including his participation in the Fellows as Medical Educators program, which includes fellows in both internal medicine and pediatrics, which has helped him to hone his teaching skills and to better identify the needs of learners.

To learn more about the Department of Internal Medicine’s Clerkship program, visit Medical Approach to the Patient (MAP) - Internal Medicine Component Clerkship.

The Department of Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine is among the nation's premier departments, bringing together an elite cadre of clinicians, investigators, educators, and staff in one of the world's top medical schools. To learn more, visit Internal Medicine.