Shelley Collins, M.D., is the recipient of the 2023 UF Hippocratic Award.
Photo: Photo by Jesse S. Jones
May 2, 2023 — With the noontime sunlight shining at UF Wilmot Botanical Gardens on April 27, a blue sheet was removed to unveil a bronze and marble bust of one of history’s greatest teachers.
More than 50 members of the M.D. class of 2023 and other guests gathered at the gardens to witness the debut of a bust honoring Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician and philosopher who serves as the namesake for the oath physicians take before they practice medicine, and to celebrate the faculty member who would receive this year’s Hippocratic Award.
The M.D. class of 2023 selected Shelley Collins, M.D., the associate dean for student affairs and a professor of pediatrics, as the winner of the 2023 Hippocratic Award, annually bestowed by the graduating medical school class to an exemplary teacher and mentor who embodies the ideals of the Hippocratic oath.
“This means a lot to me,” said Collins, who was kept in the dark about being selected as this year’s winner up until class president Mitsy Audate announced her as the awardee. “When you take on the role of helping students all you want is for them to be successful, and I am so incredibly proud of the professionals you have become and the ones you will continue to grow into.”
Father of medicine
Photo: Photo by Jesse S. Jones
During the ceremony, a bronze bust of Hippocrates — who is known as the “Father of medicine,” and taught his students under the shade of a sycamore tree in ancient Greece about the importance of caring for the sick — was revealed in the garden. The bust was sculpted in Athens and rests upon a 4-foot-tall, engraved marble base. The bust is appropriately located next to a sycamore tree that was grown from a cutting taken from the very tree Hippocrates was believed to have taught students under.
“He not only was a physician, but he was also a philosopher, a scientist, an author and one of the greatest in a galaxy of great minds of ancient Greece,” said Craig Tisher, M.D., former dean of the College of Medicine and director of the UF Wilmot Botanical Gardens. “He introduced the scientific approach to clinical medicine, and his teachings on the moral and ethical requirements of the ideal physician are summarized in the Hippocratic oath, which has been adapted for today’s physicians.”
Role model for future physicians
The graduating class began the tradition of selecting a Hippocratic Award winner when the class of 1969 planted the original UF Hippocratic tree in front of UF Health Shands Hospital. Since then, each graduating class has honored a faculty member with the accolade.
“This ceremony always is renewing for me because it reminds me of what our opportunities are to be great physicians to our patients and role models for you,” said Collins, who has been a faculty member at the College of Medicine for 17 years. “And it really embodies everything I believe in as a physician and an educator. When I think about the people who have been awarded this, they are the people I look up to. To think that you guys would think of me in that way, it’s really everything.”
‘A phenomenal clinician, adviser, cheerleader’
Read some excerpts from the Hippocratic Award nomination letters for Collins submitted by the M.D. class of 2023:
“From every interaction I’ve had with her, I’ve left it feeling welcomed, engaged, uplifted and grateful that I had a chance to talk with her.”
“She is a phenomenal clinician, adviser and cheerleader for us medical students while applying to residency programs … she has been instrumental in both my personal growth and my growth as a medical student.”
“She makes herself available to us at all times with her open-door policy, encouraging us to come to her for any issues that arise.”
“She has always advocated for us, even when it does not benefit her to do so.”
“You have effortlessly exemplified how to truly be a student advocate and a fierce woman in leadership.”
