SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Onondaga County Medical Society elected and installed Dr. Dennis Nave as its 187th president during its annual dinner held Nov. 13 at the Holiday Inn Syracuse-Liverpool in Salina.
The Medical Society announced Nave as its new president in a news release distributed on Thursday.
Nave succeeds Dr. David Halleran as the organization’s president.
Founded in 1806, the Onondaga County Medical Society’s current membership includes 1,228 physicians and 348 medical students.
The Medical Society also presented Dr. Fuad Farah with the Distinguished Service award, the organization’s highest honor.
Farah is a professor emeritus of medicine and dermatology at SUNY Upstate Medical University and chief of dermatology at Upstate University Hospital.
It also presented awards to Dr. Cynthia Morrow and Dr. Michael Lax for Physician Service to the Community; and to Dr. Thomas LaClair for Physician Service to the Medical Society.
Morrow resigned as Onondaga County Health Commissioner in April, and the Medical Society noted her work in its citation.
“As the Commissioner of Health, you feared that the proposed realignment of the Maternal Wellness and Child Care programs, which would remove them from the oversight of the Health Department, would reduce funding and access to programs that serve the women and children in our community. At first you worked internally to alter the path of this misguided initiative. When those attempts failed, you resigned from your position, which you had proudly held for nine years, in opposition to the realignment,” according to the citation posted at the Medical Society’s website.
The Medical Society also presented award citations to Ruth Heller, area vice president of the local 1199 Service Employees International Union that serves health-care workers, and Patricia Burnham, a registered nurse at the Community General campus of Upstate University Hospital, for Service to Medical Care.
The Medical Society also made its first presentation of the Jerry Hoffman Advocacy Award to Dr. Philip Kaplan for “his commitment, efforts, and involvement in support of organized-medicine advocacy,” according to the organization’s news release.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com