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Jamshid Shirani, MD, director of the general cardiology fellowship program at St. Luke’s University Health Network, has been selected to receive the prestigious Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

Shirani will be honored at ACGME’s annual meeting to be held in Orlando, Florida, in March 2018. He was selected from more than 250 nominations.

The Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award is given to a Program Director who demonstrates ongoing innovation in medical education as well as successful programmatic outcomes.

“This is a monumental award for Dr. Shirani, recognizing his dedication to our cardiology fellowship and especially to his fellows and our students and residents who may rotate on his service,” said Joel Rosenfeld, MD, Chief Academic Officer for St. Luke’s University Health Network. “This is just another testament to the high quality of our St. Luke's educational programs.”

Shirani was a finalist for the award in 2008. He also was awarded a certificate of recognition from the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) in 2008 (Marvin R. Dunn Poster Session) for his work in reinventing the learning environment.

Shirani has been a program director for more than 20 years, joining St. Luke’s in 2008. He was recruited to help launch and direct the general cardiology fellowship program. An additional program in interventional cardiology was added in 2015.

Also, St. Luke’s cardiology fellow Srilakshmy Vallabhaneni, MD, will receive the David C. Leach award. The ACGME gives this award to honor residents, fellows, and resident/fellow teams and their contributions to graduate medical education. 

Media Contact:

Sam Kennedy, Corporate Communications Director, 484-526-4134, samuel.kennedy@sluhn.org

About St. Luke’s

Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network providing services at nine hospitals and nearly 300 outpatient sites.  With annual net revenue of $1.7 billion, the network’s service area includes 10 counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon, Schuylkill, Bucks, Montgomery, Berks and Monroe counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is a major teaching hospital – the only one in the Greater Lehigh Valley.  In partnership with Temple University, St. Luke’s created the region’s first and only regional medical school campus.  It also operates the nation’s longest continuously operating School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 23 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 189 residents. Repeatedly, including 2017, St. Luke’s earned Truven’s 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital and 50 Top Cardiovascular Program designations, in addition to other honors for clinical excellence.  St. Luke’s, utilizing the EPIC electronic medical record (EMR) system, is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of St. Luke’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.  St. Luke’s is also recognized as one of the state’s lowest cost providers.