Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine Dean Bonita Stanton Honored with National Medical Fellowships Legacy Award
Bonita Stanton, M.D., the founding dean of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, will receive the National Medical Fellowships’ Legacy Award.
Dr. Stanton is being honored for helping to create “a school that recognizes inequity in health outcomes and that is demonstrating to students that healthcare disparities are born of structural and systemic racism,” according to the NMF.
NMF holds the Champions of Health Awards to “honor those individuals who have made a lasting impact on healthcare and diversity in healthcare as well as outstanding corporate leaders whose role and influence drives positive change in the business community and the communities they serve.”
The dean will receive theaward at the 2021 Virtual Champions of Health Awards ceremony, held in New York on Sept. 28.
ABOUT DR. STANTON
Dr. Stanton, who has helmed the school since its inception in 2016, has received numerous honors as a thought leader and influential educator and physician. She said she sees it as a credit to the entire School.
Stanton, a pediatrician and infectious disease expert by training, received her medical degree from the Yale University School of Medicine. She earned distinctions as a health investigator living and working in the poorest parts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, studying diarrheal diseases. Research in global HIV prevention earned her accolades in subsequent years. Before coming to the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, she served as Chair of the Department of Pediatrics and ultimately as Vice Dean for Research at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.
Stanton is also a researcher, having been continuously funded as a principal investigator on one or more grants from the National Institutes of Health since 1990. She has also authored more than 325 peer-reviewed papers, and has served as editor of several textbooks, including the Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL MEDICAL FELLOWSHIP
NMF is the only national organization solely dedicated to providing scholarships and support to medical and health professions students from groups underrepresented in healthcare. For the past 75 years, NMF has identified and supported more than 32,000 students by giving over $45 million in scholarships.