Vol XLVI, Nov '11

Over time, more than one contributor to the Wall paid tribute to James Pattee, MD, CMD, an AMDA pioneer and father of the Certified Medical Direction (CMD) program and the Core Curriculum. Dr. Pattee himself was a regular visitor to the Foundation booth at the annual meeting, as well as a generous contributor.

With Dr. Pattee’s passing last month, many AMDA leaders have paid public tribute to this great leader, who also was a friend and mentor to many. “James Pattee is one of those rare individuals whose life reached out to a long line of recipients of his education, skills, and kindness. He was the penultimate teach—always teaching in every interaction, even just a brief ‘hello, how are you?’ was a teaching moment,” said AMDA Executive Director Lorraine Tarnove on AMDA’s website. Tributes from other AMDA leaders and friends of Dr. Pattee are included in a special article in the News from the Association section of the December issue of Caring for the Ages. Among these was this comment from AMDA President Karyn Leible, RN, MD, CMD: “I met Dr. Pattee at my very first AMDA conference in San Diego in 1994. It was at the Sunday brunch. He sat down at the table I was sitting at, and he told me about AMDA and the Core Curriculum. He was so unassuming. It was such an honor to have spent that time with him that morning and in later years as we worked on the Core revisions and Dr. Pattee joined us.”

You can post your tribute to Dr. Pattee at the Wall of Caring at AMDA Long Term Care Medicine—2012 in San Antonio. Your tribute—and your donation to the Foundation—will be a lasting and powerful reminder of the difference committed physicians and visionaries such as Dr. Pattee have made on long term care medicine. This is especially true, as contributions to the Wall go toward supporting the Futures Program; and educating physicians was such a great passion of Dr. Pattee’s.