Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Robert S. Dittus, MD, MPH, is the recipient of the 2024 David M. Worthen Career Achievement Award in Health Professions Education from the Veterans Health Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Dittus is the Albert and Bernard Werthan Professor of Medicine, Chief Innovation Officer & Senior Vice President of the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network and director of both the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) and the Quality Scholars Program at the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System.
He is the first from VUMC to receive the prestigious award, which recognizes “champions” of health professions education who have advanced the VA’s health care education mission.
“This award is a testament to his long-standing commitment to the VA and to improving the health of Veterans,” said Russell Rothman, MD, MPP, the Ingram Professor of Integrative and Population Health and Senior Vice President of Population and Public Health at VUMC.
Dittus was honored in part for his 25 years of leadership as founding director of both the GRECC and the Vanderbilt-VA Quality Scholars Fellowship Training Program.
“Accomplishments recognized by awards such as this one are an acknowledgment of many who are part of the various teams that build, sustain and continuously improve educational programs,” Dittus said. “I have been privileged to work alongside great colleagues and friends.”
During his 40-year career, Dittus has mentored 142 interprofessional fellows and junior faculty who have helped improve the effectiveness and efficiency of care both inside the VA and beyond.
He also developed an innovative, widely adopted curricular design for research training, and served as the principal investigator of one or more federally funded clinical research training programs for each of his 40 faculty years.
“Providing mentorship and a nourishing environment for clinicians, scientists and students to develop as scholars and leaders in health care has been a joy for me,” Dittus noted. “Watching them flourish and succeed is a great source of pride.”
The Worthen award also recognizes Dittus’ contributions to health profession’s education outside the VA. These include: his leadership of VUMC’s clinical research curriculum award, which fostered the development of the Master of Public Health and Master of Science in Clinical Investigation degree programs; his stewardship of the development of Vanderbilt’s PhD programs in Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Health Policy; and his role as an original co-program director of VUMC’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA).
Dittus has secured more than $600 million in grant funding, co-authored more than 275 publications with over 54,000 citations, advanced the methodology of medical decision-making, and delineated the comparative effectiveness of alternative strategies for improving clinical care and advancing health care equity.
He has served as a senior investigator guiding the discovery of critical illness-associated delirium and long-term cognitive impairment that led to the development of new treatment paradigms, which have had a global impact, for reducing the mortality, morbidity and cost of critical care.
“His many roles at VUMC have helped translate knowledge into better health,” said Rothman, who succeeded Dittus as director of the Institute for Medicine and Public Health (IMPH) in 2020.
Dittus combined training from Purdue University in industrial engineering, from Indiana University in medicine, internal medicine residency and chief residency, and from the University of North Carolina in public health to address and improve the quality of health care. He has been honored with distinguished alumni awards from each university.
In 1997, Dittus joined the Vanderbilt faculty as chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine. He subsequently became the founding director of both the Vanderbilt Center for Health Services Research and the IMPH.
Dittus also served as associate vice chancellor and Executive Vice President for Public Health and Health Care and senior associate dean for Population Health Sciences, and in 2004, received Vanderbilt University’s Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor Award.
His contributions to health professions education include serving as President of the Association for Clinical Research Training.
An elected member of the Association of American Physicians, Dittus has been honored for innovations in research training and education by national organizations including the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Association for Clinical and Translational Science.
The Veterans Health Administration is the nation’s largest education and training program for health professionals. Its Career Achievement, Rising Star, and Innovator awards are named for the late David M. Worthen, MD, former associate chief medical director for Academic Affairs, and an inspirational leader of VA’s education mission.
