Richard Quinn is a freelance writer based in New Jersey.
ACR Presidential Gold Medal Award
William Koopman, MD
Distinguished Professor and Chair Emeritus, Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
Background: Dr. Koopman earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed both his internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. A three-year stint followed as a staff fellow in the Laboratory of Immunology and Microbiology at the National Institute of Dental Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He joined UAB in 1977 and has been affiliated with the university ever since. He was the founding director of the school’s UAB Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases Center and has held three separate endowed chairs during his tenure. His research has focused on regulation of autoantibody expression, particularly rheumatoid factors, and his work has led to 271 original papers, reviews, and book chapters. He has long been an active member of ACR, including a term as the College’s president in 1996–1997. In 2010, he was designated a Master of the ACR. His litany of career awards includes the UAB Distinguished Faculty Award and the President’s Gold Medal (2004) and the Robert H. Williams Distinguished Chair of Medicine Award from the Association of Professors of Medicine (2008). Dr. Koopman was unavailable for an interview with The Rheumatologist. The quotes below are from his award acceptance speech at the 2011 ACR/ARHP Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago. His speech was a series of “thank yous” to mentors and associates—from a fifth-grade science teacher to his current colleagues whom he said helped shape his career.
On the award itself: “I accept this award humbly and with a great deal of gratitude and a great sense of indebtedness to…a number of giants upon whose shoulders I’ve had the opportunity to stand during the course of my career development.”
