UW School of Medicine and Public Health student honored with Houghton Award

For Immediate Release

April 10, 2014

Contact

Kendi Parvin, 608.442.3748

kendi.parvin@wismed.org

Madison – Michael Otte, a student at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, was named as a recipient of the Wisconsin Medical Society Foundation’s prestigious 2014 Houghton Award during the Wisconsin Medical Society’s Annual Meeting April 5-6 in Green Bay.

A fourth-year medical student, Otte was jointly nominated by Patrick McBride, MD, associate dean of students, and Christopher Stillwell, director of Medical Student Services. “He (Otte) has demonstrated that he has all the necessary attributes to become an outstanding physician—commitment, dedication, enthusiasm for learning, the ability to work well with the health care team, an outstanding fund of medical knowledge, a strong work ethic, exceptional intelligence and excellent interpersonal skills,” McBride and Stillwell wrote in their nomination.

For the past three years, Otte participated in the Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine, where he excelled academically, consistently ranking in the top 10 percent of his class. He is respected by fellow students, faculty, patients and physicians. He and his wife, a nurse at Aurora Urgent Care in Plymouth, have three children. Otte plans to stay in Wisconsin to complete a family medicine residency and to practice medicine.

The Houghton Award was established by Drs. John H. and William J. Houghton in the 1960s to honor medical students who show promise for becoming what the brothers referred to as “complete physicians” – those who excel in their knowledge of both the scientific and socioeconomic issues related to medicine. Each year, one recipient at each of Wisconsin’s two medical schools receives the award and a check for $1,000.

John H. Houghton, MD, who was a general practitioner in Wisconsin Dells, was president of the State Medical Society of Wisconsin (now called the Wisconsin Medical Society) from 1965 to 1966. William J. Houghton, MD, who was also active in the Society, was a general surgeon in Milwaukee.

The Wisconsin Medical Society Foundation, chartered in 1955 as a charitable organization, works to advance the health of the people of Wisconsin by supporting medical and health education and statewide public health initiatives.

With nearly 12,500 members dedicated to the best interests of their patients, the Wisconsin Medical Society is the largest association of medical doctors in the state and a trusted source for health policy leadership since 1841.

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