BUSM Student Francis Kim Honored with National Leadership Award by AMA Foundation Honors

Francis Kim, a third year medical student at BUSM, has been named a recipient of the American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation’s 2013 Leadership Award. Recipients are recognized for demonstrating outstanding non-clinical leadership skills in advocacy, community service and education. The award provides medical students, residents/fellows and early career physicians from around the country with special training to develop their skills as future leaders in medicine and community affairs.

Francis Kim
Francis Kim

Kim plans to pursue a surgical career that combines clinical practice, research and health policy.  His interests are in health care disparities and quality improvement. While at BUSM, Kim has been active with the American Medical Association and Massachusetts Medical Society, serving as chapter co-chair, authoring several resolutions, and participating in national and statewide community service projects.

As a college student at Harvard University, Kim served as a program coordinator for the Health Leads’ Boston-based STRIVE program, which provides mentorship and advocates for inner-city adolescents with sickle cell disease. While conducting research for his Master’s thesis, he served as the Research Fellow in Operation Smile’s weeklong inaugural burns mission trip to Mumbai, India, which provided no-cost reconstructive surgeries for burn patients from the slums of Mumbai. Published in peer-reviewed literature, Kim’s ongoing research focuses on determining effective and sustainable measures to decrease global burn morbidity and mortality.

The AMA Foundation will honor 20 individuals with Leadership Awards at its annual Excellence in Medicine Awards ceremony on Feb. 11, in Washington D.C.