The Osler Award is the highest honour that the Canadian Society of Internal Medicine bestows on individuals in recognition of extraordinary professional contributions and achievements over the course of a career.
Dr. Howard Abrams, Division Head of General Internal Medicine (GIM) at UHN and Mount Sinai Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, received this prestigious lifetime achievement award for exemplifying the best in medicine.
That each Osler Award recipient is determined by colleagues strikes a personal chord for Dr. Abrams.
"It is always gratifying to be recognized by your peers," he says. "It felt like a confirmation of the importance of what we are achieving in patient care and innovation in that care."
And much like Dr. Abrams appreciates the recognition by his peers, he is quick to give credit to others that contributed to his professional success.
"This really represents the incredible talents of the large team of people from all the health professionals that work in GIM. I also would give credit to the UHN leadership for recognizing the centrality of GIM in meeting the challenges of caring for our aging and increasingly complex patients. Our other major partner in all this is our Emergency Department, who we continue to work with closely."
Dr. Abrams' contributions to the field include raising the profile of General Internal Medicine within the community, academic, hospital, and government sectors. He also participated in performance improvement initiatives that provide more high-quality, efficient, and safer care for patients.
He is keenly interested in the challenge of caring for the increasingly complex patients seen by General Internal Medicine and is Executive Director of the Centre for Innovation in Complex Care (CICC) at TGH.
Dr. Abrams has degrees in Engineering and Medicine and has trained at McMaster University, the University of Toronto, the Rotman School of Management, and the Harvard School of Public Health.
