A Leader in Multivisceral Transplantation
Tzakis Receives James W. McLamore
Outstanding Service Award

ndreas Tzakis, M.D., Ph.D., a pioneering transplant surgeon, received the 2005 James W. McLamore Outstanding Service Award during a special Faculty Senate ceremony in early February.

There are three Faculty Senate Awards granted each year by the University of Miami: The James W. McLamore Outstanding Service Award, the Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award, and the Outstanding Teaching Award. For the first time since these awards were established, medical campus faculty took all three honors.

The annual McLamore Outstanding Service Award recognizes a member of the University community who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in service to the University. Tzakis is being honored for his extraordinary clinical work and, perhaps even more importantly, for his service to his patients, who are his biggest supporters. Several of Tzakis’s patients came to the event to watch him receive this honor.

“Dr. Tzakis has not just performed more than 4,000 transplants in his lifetime; he’s really made a mark on the lives of the people he’s treated throughout the years,” said Camillo Ricordi, M.D., senior associate dean for research and a longtime colleague of Tzakis.

Tzakis has shown great leadership in his direction of the Division of Liver and GI Transplantation at the Miller School of Medicine. Now one of the five biggest programs in the world, UM’s surgeons have performed more than 120 multivisceral transplants, representing more than half of the world’s experience with this phenomenally complex procedure.

“In his chosen field of transplantation Dr. Tzakis truly stands alone as a clinical innovator and a compassionate investigator, willing to push the limits of what medical science can accomplish,” said John G. Clarkson, M.D., senior vice president for medical affairs and dean.

“I am honored to receive this award, and I accept it on behalf of everyone at UM/Jackson Memorial Medical Center who makes our transplant program so successful,” said Tzakis.

“I feel our transplant program is connected to James McLamore through our shared values: excellent and relentless daily work, sensitivity to the suffering of our fellow citizens, and investment in the future with education, research, and development. I am honored to carry on this tradition.”

James McLamore was one of the founders of Burger King Corporation and a former chairman of the University of Miami Board of Trustees. Among the past winners of the award are Edward T. Foote II, former president of the University; Bernard J. Fogel, M.D., dean emeritus of the Miller School of Medicine; Janet Canterbury, Ph.D., senior associate dean for special projects at the Miller School of Medicine; and R. Bunn Gautier, the Florida state senator instrumental in the founding of the medical school.

William J. Whelan, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and the 1997 James W. McLamore winner, was named the 2006 Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award recipient, and Diana Lopez, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and immunology, is the 2006 Outstanding Teaching Award winner.