NEW: UMass Doctor Receives Top Award From Mass Medical Society

Thursday, March 21, 2013

GoLocalWorcester Health Team

Dr. Linda Sagor

UMass Memorial's Dr. Linda D. Sagor, director of the Division of General Pediatrics, has been named the 2013 recipient of the Henry Ingersoll Bowditch Award for Excellence in Public Health by the Massachusetts Medical Society.

The award, named after a leading figure in medicine and public health in the 19th century, is presented to a Bay State physician who demonstrates creativity, commendable citizenship, initiative, innovation and leadership in the fields of public health and advocacy.

Dr. Sagor was chosen for her contributions to improving the public health of children through advocacy and education. In 2003, she established the FaCES Clinic (Foster Children Evaluation Services) to address the unmet needs of foster children in the Worcester area. As a result, all children in Central Mass in the foster care system have a central site where the medical, dental, and psychological needs of the children may be coordinated and delivered. The FaCES model of care has been so successful that the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families has asked her to develop new programs to coordinate and improve health care for children in foster care across the state.

Dr. Sagor will receive the award, one of the Mass Medical Society’s most prestigious honors, at the organization’s Annual Public Health Forum on April 3 at the Society’s headquarters in Waltham.

This is not the first time Dr. Sagor has garnered notice for her work. She is the recipient of a number of honors, including the University of Massachusetts President’s Public Service Award in 2009, Community Clinician of the Year of the Worcester District Medical Society in 2009, the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 2008, a Worcester Business Journal Health Care Hero in 2006, and Outstanding Primary Care Educator by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1999. She has also been elected by her peers for inclusion in Best Doctors in America List nine consecutive times from 1996 to 2013.