Jan Patterson, M.D., professor of medicine and pathology, medical director of infection control at the University Health System and chief of medical service at the Audie L. Murphy Division, South Texas Veterans Health Care System, has received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Hardin-Simmons University (HSU) in Abilene.
Dr. Patterson is a former member of HSU's Board of Young Associates, Board of Development and School of Music Foundation. She joined HSU's President’s Club in 1995. While an HSU student, she was a member of Alpha Chi honor society, Baptist Student Ministries, Student Congress, the Tri Beta biology honor society and the Tri Phi social club. The Distinguished Alumni Award, given since 1970, is presented to alumni whose personal and professional accomplishments are exemplary of the ideas and aims of the university and thus bring honor to HSU. This honor is one of three being awarded this year.
Dr. Patterson received her medical doctorate from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She completed her internal medicine residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a postdoctoral fellowship in infectious diseases at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Patterson is a fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America and the American College of Physicians. She has served on national committees for The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, Infectious Disease Society of America, and the American Committee of Tropical Medicine and Travelers Health. She is currently on the Anti-Infective Advisory Committee for the Food and Drug Administration. She is active in consultation and education regarding bioterrorism and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In 2003, she spent two weeks at a SARS-affected hospital in Toronto as an interim hospital epidemiologist, assisting with the many infection control issues that arose for the control of SARS in the hospital.
