Warren J. Ferguson, MD, has been honored by his peers at the Worcester District Medical Society as the district’s 2016 Community Clinician of the Year, an award recognizing his professionalism and contributions as a physician. Dr. Ferguson, vice chair and professor of family medicine & community health at UMass Medical School and a leader in its Commonwealth Medicine division, will receive the award at the district’s annual meeting April 13.
The Community Clinician of the Year Award was established in 1998 by the Massachusetts Medical Society to recognize a physician from each of the Society’s 20 district medical societies who has made significant contributions to his or her patients and the community. The Worcester District has more than 2,100 physician members.
Ferguson is director of academic programs for the Health and Criminal Justice Program and medical director of the Massachusetts Area Health Education Center (MassAHEC) Network, both within UMass Medical School’s health care consulting division Commonwealth Medicine.
In nominating him for the award, his colleagues noted that Ferguson’s “rigorous academic career has focused on the health care needs of vulnerable populations, with strategies ranging from the classroom to the clinic to behind prison walls.” With years of leadership roles at the Family Health Center of Worcester; Commonwealth Medicine and its Health and Criminal Justice Program, which previously provided health services for the Massachusetts Department of Correction and currently has several federal contracts, Ferguson has made “significant contributions to patients, the community, and the profession of medicine.”
Ferguson has received numerous previous honors, including the Chancellor’s Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence in Diversity and the Educational Achievement Award from UMass Medical School; Family Physician of the Year from the Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians; Outstanding Physician of the Year from the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers; and the Andy Nichols Award for Social Justice by the National AHEC Organization.