Congratulations to Warren Ferguson, MD, recently honored with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) prestigious Public Health Award. The award recognizes Ferguson’s extraordinary contributions to family medicine and his contributions to advancing the health of the public overall.
A professor and vice-chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), he is also the director of academic programs for the Health and Criminal Justice Program at Commonwealth Medicine, the health care consulting and operations division of UMMS.
Ferguson is a leader in correctional medicine and criminal justice health and a powerful advocate for increased access to innovative treatments and improved health care for individuals and populations within the criminal justice system.
His work has also focused on community re-entry strategies for individuals released from jails and prisons. He currently leads the Academic Consortium on Criminal Justice Health and the Academic and Health Policy Conference on Correctional Health.
Ferguson is deeply committed to developing the next generation of clinical, academic, and research talent to improve health care outcomes for vulnerable populations. With Ferguson’s help, UMMS became the first in the country to require students to take a mandatory correctional health course, a day-long session for third-year students. In 2017, Commonwealth Medicine created the Warren J. Ferguson Scholarship to honor the correctional health leader.