American College of Physicians Selects Princy N. Kumar, MD, For National Medical Education Award

Posted in News Releases  |  Tagged faculty awards, faculty honors, medical education

WASHINGTON (March 27, 2024) — The American College of Physicians (ACP), will present the Jane F. Desforges Distinguished Teacher Award to Princy N. Kumar, MD, MACP, at its Internal Medicine Meeting in April.

The Jane F. Desforges Distinguished Teacher Award recipient “presents the qualities of a great teacher as judged by the acclaim and accomplishments of former students who have been inspired and have achieved positions of leadership in the field of medical education, primarily as teachers.”

A prerequisite for the award is to receive a Mastership from the American College of Physicians, which Kumar received in 2016.

“While I’ve strived to impart knowledge and guidance, it is my students’ enthusiasm, questions, and insights that have continually inspired me to evolve as an educator,” Kumar said. “I owe a great deal of my professional growth to their contributions and am humbled by their acknowledgment of the role that I played in shaping their futures as educators themselves.”

Kumar is senior associate dean of students at Georgetown University School of Medicine, where she is also a professor of medicine and microbiology. In addition, she is Chief of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

Kumar has garnered many prestigious awards and recognition throughout her career, including becoming the first woman to be inducted into Georgetown’s Golden Apple Orchard in 2004 for sustained excellence in teaching medical students; she continues to receive Golden Apple Awards each time she is eligible. In 2010, she was inducted into the Magis Society for Master Teachers and was presented with the 2015 Founders’ Medal for Dedication and Leadership of Cura Personalis.

She served as the director of the Clinical Population Sciences Core for the DC Center for AIDS Research until June 2020. She is the principal investigator for the DC Cohort, which is a unique NIH-funded, citywide longitudinal cohort for outpatients with HIV who receive care in Washington, DC. She has an extensive research portfolio and has over 120 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Her public service includes serving as the medical director and volunteer at Gift of Peace, a Missionaries of Charity home founded by Mother Teresa that provides care to the uninsured and homeless in DC. She also received a certificate of appreciation from the Peace Corps for her service advising the Peace Corps on medical issues and teaching Peace Corps medical officers.

In 2019, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Foundation named Kumar a Women of ID to recognize her profound impact on the field of infectious diseases and the lives of those around her. In 2021, Georgetown University Medical Center awarded her the Karen Gale Award, which recognizes a medical center faculty member for outstanding professional achievements in research, education and service. She received the DC Medical Society’s Dr. Charles H. Epps, III Community Service Award, which is presented to a physician member of the Medical Society of DC for outstanding public service to the community, which recognized her work on best practice for COVID-19 safety protocols as well as her mentorship of future medical students.