Having good a mentor is important to every phase of a physician’s career, but perhaps never more critical than in the earliest years out of training. Recognizing the key role that expert mentorship plays in a young physician’s success, the YPS has created the Model Mentor Award.
Any YPS member may nominate one of their mentors for this award by submitting a narrative vignette that illustrates an effective and nurturing mentorship by this physician.
Requirements:
- The nominees must be AAO-HNS members in good standing
- The nomination packet requires full contact information for both the nominee and the nominating YPS member, as well as a nominating paragraph of up to 325 words
- The YPS Governing Council will select the Model Mentor Award winners to be recognized during the YPS General Assembly at the AAO-HNSF Annual Meeting & OTO Experience and will consider the winning vignettes for submission to Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery
The 2023 nomination process will be open January 4 – March 15. Submit your nomination today!
2022 YPS Model Mentor Award
This year’s YPS Model Mentor awardee is Philomena M. Behar, MD, who has been an exemplary mentor for the residents in the Department of Otolaryngology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly referred to as the University at Buffalo (UB). She excels at mentoring residents and students on how to design and implement clinical research projects. Her mentees have won the annual UB Otolaryngology Resident Research Award in 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019, and her commitment to the education and development of future otolaryngologists is commendable.
Dr. Behar has enjoyed training otolaryngology residents and fellows as a clinical associate professor of otolaryngology at UB for more than 25 years. The UB otolaryngology residents chose Dr. Behar as Clinical Instructor of the Year in 2019 and 2016. She is also actively involved in training and mentoring UB undergraduate and medical students as well as physician assistant and nurse practitioner students from Daemen University in Amherst and D’Youville University in Buffalo, both in New York.
Dr. Behar has also been the principal investigator for multiple resident research projects and publications, of which many have been published in Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, the official peer-reviewed journal of the AAO-HNSF. She has acknowledged the support and inspiration of her own mentors, N. Wendell Todd, MD, MPH, the late Linda S. Brodsky, MD, as well as her late husband, Jerry Behar. She started her pediatric otolaryngology career in Memphis, Tennessee, at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and has been in in solo private practice at Pediatric ENT Associates in Buffalo since 2001.
Recipients of the YPS Model Mentor Award include:
- John H. Krouse, MD, PhD, MBA (2021)
- Lawrence M. Simon, MD (2020)
- Samantha Anne, MD
- Stacey L. Ishman, MD, MPH
- Giancarlo F. Zuliani, MD
- James D. Sidman, MD
- J. Regan Thomas, MD
- Bill Lydiatt, MD
- Ellis M. Arjmand, MD, PhD
We thank you for your contribution to the future of the specialty.