California Academy of Family Physicians Honors Professor
The 7,000-member California Academy of Family Physicians (CAFP) has presented David Bazzo, MD, with its 2011 Educator of the Year award. Dr. Bazzo teaches family medicine and sports medicine to medical students, residents, fellows and practicing physicians at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.
“David Bazzo is one of the leading family medicine educators in the country,” said CAFP President Carol S. Havens. “His tireless work to ensure clinical expertise has shaped the practice of thousands of physicians and countless patients over the span of two decades.”
Dr. Bazzo has served as the family medicine lead and co-director of the Primary Care Core Clerkship at UC San Diego since 1999. In this unique program, third-year medical students are able to experience a full year of outpatient primary care, instead of the briefer clerkships more commonly available.
"I was humbled and honored by this award. To be considered in the same category of some of my most respected teachers and mentors was incredible," said David Bazzo, MD.
From 2001 to 2011, Dr. Bazzo served as associate director of the UC San Diego Physician Assessment and Clinical Education (PACE) Program, which is dedicated to assisting peer physicians who develop practice difficulties related to clinical competency. One important component of this program included assessing and providing remedial education for 300 primary care physicians in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which helped improve the quality of care delivered over several years. Since 2008, he has continued his work as director of the UC San Diego California Correctional Health Care Improvement Program (C-CHIP).
In addition to his PACE efforts, Dr. Bazzo has also contributed significantly to continuing medical education for his peers, developing programs for the San Diego Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians, presenting at medical conferences and publishing in medical journals to high school students under a long-running National Institutes of Health grant and to the community at large through scores of television and newspaper interviews over the past few decades.
About the California Academy of Family Physicians
With more than 7,000 members, including actively practicing family physicians, residents in family medicine and medical students interested in the specialty, CAFP is the largest primary care medical society in California. Family physicians are trained to treat an entire family’s medical needs, addressing the whole spectrum of life’s medical challenges. Family physicians serve a broad base of patients in urban, suburban and rural areas, often in California’s most underserved areas.
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Media Contacts: Michelle Brubaker, 619-543-6163, mmbrubaker@ucsd.edu