Janice Hanson, B.A., M.A.Ed., Ed.S., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics and Family Medicine, Department of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, has been selected as the recipient for the 2010 Putnam Scholars Program by the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare (AACH). Jan is the second recipient of this scholarship. The Putnam Scholars Program celebrates AACH co-founder, Samuel Morse Putnam, MD, whose work was defined by his commitment as an advocate for education and research in physician-patient communication. Dr. Hanson was selected by AACH to use the grant to complete a project to equip faculty to teach and evaluate medical students' communication skills, using the Essential Elements of Communication (EEC) tool to study the developmental progression of physician/patient communication skills during medical education and to build consistent, coordinated teaching across the curriculum.

"As co-founder of AACH, Sam Putnam was a medical visionary, early to appreciate the critical importance of the patient-physician relationship for human healing and as the essential delivery system for cost-effective and just utilization of our awesome biotechnology," says Norman Jensen, MD, MS, FAACH, FACP, current president of AACH. "It was my great pleasure to count Sam Putnam as a friend and colleague for more than 25 years; I know Sam would be humbly pleased and highly joyful to know that Dr. Hanson is the recipient and would lovingly attend to the progress of her work."

Dr. Hanson dates the beginning of her interest in healthcare communications to the time she was designing her doctoral dissertation. While doing a psychology internship in pediatrics, she was explaining test results to a father. As he learned that his two year old daughter was showing signs of significant developmental delay, he was distraught. Although Dr. Hanson had been trained to administer tests and interpret results, she had not received training in supportive communication with parents, and she realized its vital importance in that moment. She later expanded her interest to relationships with patients and families.

Dr. Jan Hanson's sponsoring department (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences) will receive and administer the grant from AACH for her proposed project to assess medical students' communication skills using a tool to gather data on the developmental progression of those skills through the four years of medical school. As the school will undertake curriculum reform in the next year, Dr. Hanson hopes to accomplish this project in time for implementation of the new curriculum.

An AACH member will serve as a mentor to Dr. Hanson to help guide her through her work. The Putnam Scholar Program also funds mentor visits and attendance at the AACH Research and Teaching Forum.

While accomplishing the project, Dr. Hanson hopes she "will make a contribution to medical communications, deepen her research skills and bring exquisite faculty development to our [the] school."