Phillip Jordan, of Hamden, a student at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University.
Phillip Jordan, of Hamden, a rising third-year student at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, received the Most Promising Medical Student Award on May 12, at the annual Doctors of Distinction Awards Ceremony at Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk.
The award recognizes a medical student whose passion for the profession, high academic achievement and sensitivity to medical ethics and patient care show promise of an outstanding new physician. The Fairfield County Business Journal and the accounting firm of Citrin Cooperman are the founders of the awards program.
“My initial reaction was astonishment followed by gratitude. This even further strengthens my resolve to fulfill and exceed the high expectations set by the Netter School of Medicine,” said Jordan, who is considering practicing internal medicine, emergency medicine or neurology.
Jordan credited the medical school faculty at Quinnipiac for helping him earn the award.
“The Netter School of Medicine has done a superb job teaching my classmates and me that while making the correct diagnosis and treatment is necessary, it is not sufficient to providing the best health care possible,” Jordan said. “The Netter School has taught me to look beyond the diagnosis and explore how the patient is coping with his or her illness, and what barriers or support system deficiencies may be impeding his or her return to physical and mental wellbeing. Over the last two years, I have learned that the physician holds the great responsibility of allaying fears, anxiety and a sense of lost control. The Netter School has taught me that how I interact with my patients will strongly influence how the patient identifies with and perceives his or her illness.”
Dr. Bruce Koeppen, dean of the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, said, “Phillip is most deserving of the Most Promising Medical Students Award, because even at this early stage of his professional development, he embodies the ideal of ‘going beyond the diagnosis,’ or doing more as a physician than simply treating the patient. His capstone project on drug addiction and unconscious bias in care providers of addicts, and his volunteer work in an underserved area in Guatemala are clear signs that he plans a career that does more than simply treat the patient.”
Jordan has a bachelor’s degree in biology, physiology and neurobiology specialization from the University of Maryland, College Park.
The Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, which opened in 2013, is located in the Center for Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences on Quinnipiac’s North Haven Campus with the School of Nursing and School of Health Sciences. The three schools are united not only in the same state-of-the-art complex but by the same mission: to graduate medical and health care practitioners who will be the driving force for a more collaborative, economical and efficient health care system. With the addition of a medical school, Quinnipiac is educating the triad responsible for primary care—the physician assistant, nurse practitioner and physician.