Richard Reznick, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s University, is being recognized with a major award from his alma mater.

A proud McGill University alumnus, Dr. Reznick is receiving the Medicine Alumni Global Award for Lifetime Achievement for his nearly 30-year career in medical education.

The award, presented since 2009, is given to a graduate “who has enhanced the reputation of McGill University through a lifetime of exceptional leadership.”

“When I realized who had been given the award in the past I felt incredibly humbled,” says Dr. Reznick. His predecessors form a list of medical professionals at the forefront of their specialty, including Dr. Charles Scriver, a pioneer in medical genetics, and Dr. Phil Gold, who co-discovered carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), which led to a test that detects colon cancer.

While he is thrilled to receive the lifetime achievement award, Dr. Reznick says there is still much work to be done. 

“The future of medical education remains very exciting,” he says. “By continuing to improve the way we train future health professionals we will ultimately improve the way we deliver health care to our patients.”

Dr. Reznick is recognized as a leader in surgical education and has devised reliable clinical assessment tools to judge surgical quality. That work earned him the Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education in 2010. He also played a leading role in establishing a performance-based examination used for medical licensure across Canada.

Dr. Reznick was first appointed Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s in 2010 and was reappointed for a second five-year term this past June. During his time as dean, the faculty has worked to intensify research, develop new models of teaching and training, and introduce new programs, such as the Queen’s University Clinician Investigator Program, the Queen’s University Accelerated Route to Medical School (QuARMS), the multidisciplinary Master of Science in Healthcare Quality, a combined MD/PhD program, and the functional anatomy boot camp. 

Dr. Reznick also serves as the chief executive officer of the Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Association (SEAMO).  He is also currently a member of the boards of Kingston General Hospital, Hotel Dieu Hospital and Providence Care.

A professor in the Department of Surgery, Dr. Reznick completed his medical degree at McGill and then graduated from the general-surgery training program at the University of Toronto. He completed a Master of Education degree at Southern Illinois University followed by a fellowship in colorectal surgery at the University of Texas in Houston.