Dr. Angela Mihalic, Dean of Medical Students and Associate Dean of Student Affairs, has been selected to receive the 2019 Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation’s Piper Professor Award, a prestigious honor that recognizes outstanding college professors across Texas.

Dr. Mihalic, a Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, is the 15^th UT Southwestern faculty member to receive the elite award, established in 1958 to honor dedication to teaching and outstanding academic achievement.

Dr. Mihalic is universally regarded as an exceptional educator by students and peers. Her passion for engaging medical students to become lifelong learners is matched with a compassion to guide them to success that exemplifies the best of UT Southwestern’s educational mission, said Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky, President of UT Southwestern. Her contributions to reshaping our curriculum and robust mentoring reflect the spirit that the Piper Award was designed to acknowledge.

Dr. Mihalic, a 1995 graduate of UT Southwestern Medical School, said her appreciation for teaching evolved during that time.

My best friend was a classmate and her mother became very ill, Dr. Mihalic recalled. As she became the primary care taker, I assumed the role of teacher and tutor to ensure that she kept up. I learned that I loved teaching and was so proud when my friend continued to do well despite the burden she faced.

A member of Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society as a student, she completed her pediatric internship and residency at Children’s Medical Center Dallas before being invited to join the UTSW faculty in 1998. Her tenure includes serving as one of the first mentors for the Academic Colleges program and as pediatric clerkship director, along with multiple outstanding teacher honors that include twice receiving the Socrates Award for clinical teaching and being selected by students as Commencement Marshall 12 times.

This love of teaching grew as I chose my specialty. Pediatricians are teachers at the core – helping parents learn how to care for their infants, how to support their development, and how to prevent illness and injury. And I quickly confirmed my passion for teaching as a faculty member. Nothing was as fulfilling as seeing learners’ excitement, understanding, and desire to learn more, Dr. Mihalic said. But I also soon began a career-long passion for finding the gap through needs assessments, developing curriculum, delivering it, and evaluating its success. My passion for advising and mentorship grew as an Academic Colleges mentor, and the opportunity presented as Associate Dean broadened the impact I could have to all medical students by developing initiatives that would have a lasting impact.

Dr. Charles Ginsburg, Vice Provost and Senior Associate Dean for Education and former Chair of Pediatrics, recruited her in 1998 to the Pediatrics faculty.

Angela Mihalic is clearly one of the two or three most outstanding physician-educators that I have had the good fortune to encounter during my 42 years in academic medicine, said Dr. Ginsburg, Professor of Pediatrics. She has integrity, grit, passion for learning and teaching, superb clinical skills and judgment, a strong work ethic, a cheerful and upbeat demeanor, and she has the protective maternal instincts of a grizzly bear when it comes to medical students. Dr. Mihalic epitomizes, in all respects, the term ‘physician-educator.’