Dr. Winston Price, M.D. ’74, a Georgia pediatrician and the president and chair of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition, has been named the National Medical Association’s 2021 Practitioner of the Year.
The annual award recognizes Black physicians who have made major contributions in support of the mission of the NMA, which advocates for the elimination of health disparities and the advancement of the art and science of medicine for people of African descent.
Dr. Price, who served as the organization’s president in 2004-2005, has been involved with the NMA for more than 40 years.
“I’ve worked with some of the greatest and brightest minds in health care and public health advocacy who were my NMA role models, so to be able to stay true to the goal of the organization – and to be recognized by my peers – is a tremendous accolade, especially during this pandemic,” Dr. Price says.
A faculty member at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) and the Medical College of Georgia, he is also chair of the Southwest Georgia Area Health Education Center and Chief Information & Technology Officer for the W. Montague COBB/NMA Health Institute. In addition, he serves as the faculty director for Pathway Programs through the PCOM South Georgia campus, addressing the need for greater numbers of underrepresented physicians in health care, especially in the rural South.
Dr. Price, a Brooklyn native, found his way to Weill Cornell Medical College after meeting Dr. James Curtis, who helped spearhead the institution’s early efforts to attract and retain underrepresented minorities in medicine. Dr. Curtis and Dr. Aaron Wells – a legendary civil rights activist who also taught at Weill Cornell Medicine – were both influential in Dr. Price’s development as a physician, he says. “While I saw the racism that was going on in other medical schools and in other segments of society, I felt comfortable in the Weill Cornell environment,’’ he says. “The breadth and depth of exposure that we were afforded during our medical education allowed us to round ourselves out in a way that created the leadership skills we needed to be successful. And my mission was to give back.”