ASCP Named Awards Build Upon the Legacies of Early Pathologists and Recognize the Current Generation

Each year, ASCP honors members who have made significant contributions to pathology and the medical laboratory profession. Some of these awards are named in honor of pathologist or laboratory professional members for their specific accomplishments in advancing the profession and ASCP during their career.   

Ever wonder who were these giants in pathology for whom these awards are named? Here is a snapshot of some of these remarkable individuals and their legacies in pathology and laboratory medicine. 

H.P. Smith Award for Distinguished Pathology Educator 

This award recognizes ASCP pathologist members with distinguished careers in pathology and laboratory medicine who embrace education, research, administration, or service to organized pathology are ideal candidates for this award. This award was established in 1974 to honor former ASCP president, H.P. Smith, MD, FASCP, who served as professor and head of the Department of Pathology and Bacteriology at the University of Iowa from 1930 until 1945 and later held a similar position at Columbia University in 1945. 

A Fellow of ASCP beginning in 1940, Dr. Smith served on the Society’s Executive Committee and was President-elect and President from 1957 to 1959. His expertise touched many areas of the Society, serving on the Master Program Planning Committee, the Research Committee, as ASCP Representative to the American Medical Association, the Plan and Scope Committee, and numerous other committees. For his service, he received the ASCP Ward Burdick Award in 1941. Read more about him here.  

Last September, the ASCP H.P. Smith Award for Distinguished Pathology Educator Award was presented to Alexa Siddon, MD, FASCP, during the ASCP 2024 Annual Meeting.

“Receiving the H.P. Smith Award for Distinguished Pathology Educator was both an honor and a total surprise!” says Dr. Siddon, who is a professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Yale School of Medicine/Yale New Haven Hospital, Director of the Hematopathology Fellowship, and Medical Director of the Clinical Molecular Diagnostics and Flow Cytometry Laboratories in Laboratory Medicine. A molecular hematopathologist, her research interests include refining the diagnosis and prognostication of myeloid neoplasms. 

“I am so grateful to ASCP for recognizing me. I truly hope I am helping train future pathologists with the same enthusiasm and love of the field as my mentors trained me,” she adds.

Israel Davidsohn Award for Distinguished Service 

The Israel Davidsohn Award for Distinguished Service recognizes the rare individual who has made a significant impact within ASCP through a variety of roles. Established in 1989, this award recognizes Israel Davidsohn, MD, FASCP, ASCP President from 1951 to 1952 whose contributions touched every aspect of ASCP.  

Dr. Davidsohn was already 77 and had dedicated 50 years of his career to education and cancer research when he was interviewed for an article in the Feb. 1, 1973, issue of Laboratory Medicine. At the time, he was professor of pathology in the  

University of Health Sciences at the Chicago Medical School, and head of the Department of Experimental Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center, in Chicago. His research in cancer “resulted in the development of a highly sensitive and specific immunologic test for the diagnosis and prognosis of some cancers,” according to the article. Learn more about Dr. Davidsohn here.   

Philip Levine Award for Outstanding Research 

Established in 1969, this award honors ASCP members who have made significant contributions to molecular pathology, immunohematology, and/or immunopathology. It honors the late Phillip Levine, MD, FASCP, whose contributions to medicine included determining the etiology of Rh hemolytic disease of newborns.   

Born in 1900 near Minsk, now in Belarus, Dr. Levine and his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, when he was eight years old. He earned his MD at Cornell University Medical School in 1923, A few years later, he became an assistant to Karl Landsteiner, MD, an Austrian American biologist, physician and immunologist at the Rockefeller Institute, in New York. (Dr. Landsteiner had developed the modern system of classification of blood groups two decades earlier.) Dr. Levine went on to work as a bacteriologist and serologist at Newark Beth Israel Hospital in New Jersey. He was among a handful of pioneers in the area of blood group genetics and immunology. He passed away in 1987. Learn more about his extraordinary career here.  

Ward Burdick Award for Distinguished Service to Pathology 

This award recognizes noteworthy contributions to pathology through sustained service to the profession and ASCP. Established in 1929, the award honors Ward Burdick, MD, FASCP, one of the founders of the ASCP. 

In 1961, ASCP presented its inaugural ASCP award named in honor of Ward Thomas Burdick. The presentation “bespeaks the high regard we still have for the memory of our founder and Secretary-Treasurer, who died 33 years ago,” according to an article in February 1, 1962, issue of AJCP. Born in Pennsylvania in 1878, he was sent to live with his paternal grandparents when his mother died during his infancy. When his father remarried, Dr. Burdick returned to live with his family who moved to Buffalo, New York. A few years later, a teenage Dr. Burdick struck out on his own to make his way in the world.  In 1908, he graduated from the American Medical College in St. Louis, Missouri, and then completed postgraduate studies at Washington University. In 1908, he received his license to practice medicine in Missouri and became a professor of bacteriology at his alma mater.  

He and his family later ended up in Denver, Colorado, where he opened a private practice. As he continued his studies, “foremost in his mind was the tremendous importance of ‘pathological examination and diagnosis,’” according to the AJCP article. “He had a vision, far in advance of his time, of the pathologist as a highly valued member of the medical and surgical team.” Learn more about Dr. Burdick’s fascinating career by clicking on the AJCP article here.  

Dr. Philip and Sandra Barney Resident Volunteer Service Award   

The Dr. Philip and Sandra Barney Resident Volunteer Service Award is the newest named award. The service award, which recognizes an ASCP resident member with outstanding ASCP volunteer experience, began in 2023 through the generous donation of ASCP Past President Dr. Philip Barney and Sandra Barney to the ASCP Foundation. Learn more here. 

Continuing the legacy 

These named awards are one way that ASCP continues to honor the legacies of these amazing professionals by recognizing the current generation of distinguished pathologists who are making their own imprints to the field to this day.   

Last September, at the 2024 ASCP Annual Meeting, the Society presented the Israel Davidsohn Award for Distinguished Service to Zubair W. Baloch, MD, PhD, professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. 

"I am deeply honored and grateful for this recognition,” says Dr. Baloch. “ASCP is an organization that consistently values and appreciates the contributions of its volunteers and members. This recognition inspires me to continue striving for excellence.” 

Dr. Baloch adds, “As John Ruskin once said, 'The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.’”