Eric Topol to receive Gold Foundation medal for humanism in healthcare
Topol to be honored alongside Drs. Anthony Fauci and Wayne Riley, as well as hundreds of healthcare professionals for their dedication and compassion during the COVID-19 crisis.
January 28, 2021
LA JOLLA, CA—The Arnold P. Gold Foundation will award its National Humanism in Medicine Medal to Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and executive vice president at Scripps Research.
The Foundation recently announced Topol would be receiving the award “for his trusted voice blending top-tier science and the essential human connection in bestselling books and myriad platforms, throughout his career and especially during the COVID-19 crisis.”
Topol will be honored alongside Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Wayne Riley, MD, 17th president of the SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. The Foundation is also recognizing the contributions of hundreds of healthcare workers for their courage and perseverance during the pandemic.
“I’m humbled to be recognized beside such eminent colleagues and grateful to the Gold Foundation for this honor,” says Topol. “The strains that COVID-19 has placed on healthcare professionals underscore the need to restore and protect the patient-doctor relationship. Nurturing that bond remains at the heart of my research and my work.”
Topol, who is also a cardiologist, has been a leading voice for science during the ongoing pandemic, helping decipher the torrent of scientific information on the novel virus and sharing his analyses with hundreds of thousands of followers through his active Twitter account. He has been a regular source of expert insights for national and international media, as well as providing guidance to national efforts to combat the virus. His Medicine and the Machine podcast, hosted together with Abraham Verghese, has scrutinized COVID-19 from a multitude of perspectives, covering everything from immune responses and vaccine development, to social justice and lessons learned from past pandemics.
As a physician-scientist, his research centers on the application of genomic and digital tools to individualize medicine. In recent years, he has also focused on the utilization of artificial intelligence to reshape healthcare and biomedical research.
He has published over 1,200 peer-reviewed articles and is the author of three books on the future of medicine: The Creative Destruction of Medicine, The Patient Will See You Now, and Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again.
In 2020, Topol, together with colleagues, launched Medicine Forward, a nonprofit organization led by doctors that advocates for authentic patient-doctor relationships with emphasis on time, presence, communication and empathy that are the essence of humanistic patient care.
The medals will be awarded at the Gold Foundation’s Annual Gala on June 10, 2021, which this year will be a virtual gathering.
For more information, contact press@scripps.edu