PURCH Student Awards
The Trailblazer Award
This annual award recognizes a 4th year or graduating PURCH student who epitomizes the following characteristics through their actions and/or the trail they blazed.
- Personal qualities of strength, courage, and resilience
- Relentless in their pursuits while also embracing—and learning from—failures or setbacks
- Carves new paths towards success for themselves and others and, in so doing, uphold the PURCH principles through inclusivity, humility, and excellence.
Trailblazer Award recipients receive an engraved compass.
"Take pride in how far you have come and have faith in how far you can go."
What is a Trailblazer?
A trailblazer doesn't just develop something new—a trailblazer prepares the way for others to follow.
A trailblazer sees potential and continually seeks opportunity and improvement.
A trailblazer takes initiative, is willing to go where no one has ever been, to do what no one has ever done.
A trailblazer leads the way.
Trailblazer Award Recipients
2024
Kevin T Hinchey, MD
Kassandra Jean Marie, MD
Jordan Dudley, MD
2023
Mary Marchese, MD
Calvin Schaffer, MD
2022
Deirdre Buckley, MD
2021 Inaugural Trailblazer Award
The first-ever Trailblazer Award was presented to our entire inaugural cohort of students. These 19 students had an instrumental role throughout their entire four years as co-creators of the Population-based Urban and Rural Community Health track.
| Inaugural PURCH Class | |
|---|---|
| Andrew Boylan, MD | Emily Nuss, MD |
| Colton Conrad, MD | Tatiana Petrovich, MD |
| Juliana Dixon, MD | Prithwijit Roychowdhury, MD |
| Kirstin Lee, MD | Laura Schwartz, MD |
| Wendy Ma, MD | Alay Shah, MD |
| Poornima Manikantan, MD | Daniel Wenzel, MD |
| Elisabeth McGovern, MD | Kevin White, MD |
| Caleb Noone, MD | Amanda Whitehouse, MD |
| Kathryn Norman, MD | Wanlu Xu, MD |
| Afua Nti, MD |
Anthony Lovell MD Memorial Endowed Award for Excellence
The Lovell Award honors the outstanding achievements of a graduating medical student from UMass Chan Medical School - Baystate who is returning to Baystate Health for residency training, with a preference for internal medicine or other primary care-related residency.
The awardee epitomizes Dr. Anthony P. Lovell's life-long commitment to serving the community and providing highly skilled and deeply compassionate medical care to patients, and also shows great promise for a remarkable career in medicine.
This award is funded by a grant from the Lovell family.
Lovell Award Recipients
2024
Gabrielle Carroll, MD
Kassandra Marcelle Jean-Marie, MD
2023
Paige Mastalerz, MD
2022 Inaugural Lovell Award
Molly Ingemi, MD
The Mable Lene Sharif Community Impact Award
Mable Lene Sharif was a dedicated and passionate member of the Baystate Community Faculty, whose unwavering commitment to health equity, advocacy, and mentorship left a profound impact on the PURCH program and the community at large. In recognition of her legacy, the Mable Lene Sharif Community Impact Award was established to honor a graduating PURCH medical student each year who embodies the values she lived by—compassion, leadership, and a deep commitment to serving the community.
Through this award, we celebrate Mable Lene Sharif’s lasting influence and continue to uplift her vision of empowering future physicians to make a meaningful difference in the lives of those they serve.
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