MARCH 15, 2005 | He has been a faculty member at the University of Arkansas for Medical  Sciences (UAMS)  since 1988, but Thomas E. Andreoli, M.D., says “What I have really been all these years is a student.”

“I believe a teacher must also be a student,” said the distinguished professor and former chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine and professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the UAMS College of Medicine. The roles of learning and teaching are deeply intertwined, he said.

UAMS honored Andreoli for his achievements as a teacher and researcher on Feb. 24 as it celebrated the endowment of the Clinical Scholar Chair in his name. An endowed chair is the highest academic honor that can be bestowed by a university on its faculty. A chair is supported with designated gifts of $1 million or more and can honor the memory of a loved one or, as in this case, honor the accomplishments of a professor.

“An educator doesn’t win 35 teaching awards for nothing,” said UAMS Chancellor I. Dodd Wilson, M.D. He noted that Andreoli has worked with 20 new medical residents each year, more than 500 in his career. “He has positively affected the lives of these young physicians, who in turn have a substantial impact on medicine and society.”

UAMS College of Medicine Dean E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., said an endowed chair also enhances the ability of the university to attract and retain high quality faculty. “Endowed chairs are increasingly critical in the role they play in the pursuit of excellence by the College of Medicine,” he said.

“An endowed chair is also a singular mark of distinction and a true testament to the high regard in which one is held by their peers,” Reece said. “Dr. Andreoli’s work epitomizes the very best in his field.”

Andreoli’s research work includes being the first to describe the structure of the amphotericin B-cholesterol pore, which served as a model for the molecular description of pores, or channels, found in biologic membranes.

After receiving his medical degree, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University, Andreoli trained in internal medicine and physiology at Duke University. He went on to serve on the faculties at the University of Alabama in Birmingham School of Medicine and the University of Texas Medical School in Houston before joining UAMS in 1988 as a professor.

His 35 teaching awards came for work in Texas and in Arkansas.

Donald W. Seldin, M.D., the William Buchanan Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, has known Andreoli for more than 30 years. In his collegial remarks, Seldin praised Andreoli’s clinical work with patients and the importance of an endowed chair for a clinical scholar.

“It is particularly moving and very heartening that you are recognizing the clinical side – not to neglect research – but both play integral roles in medicine,” Seldin said. “Dr. Andreoli, in his own unique way, combines the qualities of the clinical medicine with teaching and research.”

Seldin called the endowment ceremony a “moving and noble occasion,” and contrasted it with the problems facing the health care system. Costs are rising and medical schools are also being affected, he said.

“So it is important to treasure the institutional structures that support the university, as they are beacon lights that inspire everyone,” Seldin said.