E. Wesley Ely, MD, MPH, Grant W. Liddle Professor of Medicine, co-director of the Center for Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and associate director for research for the VA’s Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center (GRECC), received the Paul B. Magnuson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Rehabilitation Research and Development from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on May 13 in Washington, D.C.
The award was presented by Denis McDonough, Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
The highest award presented to an investigator in rehabilitation research and development, it’s presented annually to a VA Rehabilitation Research and Development Service investigator who exemplifies the entrepreneurship, humanitarianism and dedication to veterans displayed by Magnuson, a bone and joint surgeon, during his career. Magnuson continuously sought new treatments and devices for assisting his patients as they faced unique situations presented by their disability.
According to the VA, “as a person, Magnuson was a champion of the underdog. As a physician, he saw his duty, not only as curing, but also as restoring a patient to his family, his job, and his life. As a researcher he noted that as long as there is disease and injury, the problems of medicine will never be solved. As an advocate for veterans, he was the architect of the VA health care system as it is today.”
Ely, according to those who work closely with him, embodies all of those qualities.
“Wes is a role model physician scientist who keeps his patients centered in his work, listens to them, observes their challenges, and engages with them to develop and test interventions that improve their length and quality of life,” said Robert Dittus, MD, MPH, the Albert and Bernard Werthan Professor of Medicine and director of the GRECC. “Wes has developed a highly successful interprofessional team that continues to improve the quality of critical care during and beyond an acute, critical illness.”
The Tennessee Valley GRECC is part of a larger VA initiative to expand its network of geriatric centers of excellence to better serve the nation’s growing ranks of elderly veterans. Ely oversees research at the facility focusing on cognitive impairment, quality and safety of care and chronic disease prevention and management.
The GRECC was established by Congress in 1975 to improve the health and health care of older veterans.
Ely, an internist, pulmonologist and critical care physician, founded Vanderbilt’s Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship (CIBS) Center where he now serves as co-director. He has worked with critically ill patients who suffer from delirium and are at risk for long-term cognitive, functional and neuropsychological impairments.
His efforts helped identify delirium as one of the most critical problems facing patients in intensive care units— linked with increased deaths, prolonged ICU and hospital lengths of stay and significantly higher medical costs.
Ely said he is honored to receive the award.
“Our patients lead us,” Ely said. “I am receiving this award on behalf of the veterans who have taught me what it means to sacrifice for others. Through their example we are able to focus our research team’s scientific efforts to improve the lives of people we’ll never meet.”
