2023 Spring STAR Educator Recipient: George C. Willis, MD
George C. Willis, MD
Assistant Professor
Department of Emergency Medicine
Nomination Submission:
Dr. Willis always goes above and beyond to ensure that teaching is a priority both in the Emergency Department and outside during our didactics. His lectures are always made to captivate the audience, and almost always have some unseen twist to truly provide residents, medical students, and faculty with a fresh perspective and “pearls” to difficult patient cases. He also is extremely patient while teaching, encourages the learner to think critically, and provides the best technique tips when doing any procedure. In addition to being an exceptional teacher, Dr. Willis’ caring, nurturing, and selfless character have made him one of my closest mentors. He translates his love for his residents into his love for his patients, and there is no other person who exudes as much compassion as Dr. Willis. I have seen him go above and beyond to provide thorough care for everyone he sees, including the entire team in the ED. I have learned so much from Dr. Willis this year, and am THRILLED to be nominating such an outstanding person.
Dr. Willis embodies the LSOM Star of Education award. Whether he be working in the department, organizing weekly didactics or mentoring numerous medical students and residents, Dr. Willis is always teaching and educating the next generation of doctors. He wears many hats in the department for the residents- research mentor, life coach, and resident advocate are just a few of the many ways that he brings excellence to our department.
Dr. Willis is an excellent educator. He’s an outstanding role model, and a strong and reliable mentor. Whether it’s on shift, after shift, during grand Rounds, or a random time of the day, he has always been available to lend a listening ear he knows when I just want to vent, and when I need advice. He demonstrates a rare empathy I only hope to emulate. He takes the time to make sure I understand the entirety of the patient’s case. He also made vast positive changes to our educational curriculum, to include scheduling, national level speakers, more hands-on, workshops and simulation, cases, and more robust, asynchronous learning.
While he may have been a huge loss for university of Maryland, he has been a tremendous blessing for our program and our hospital.
Dr. Willis is a natural-born educator. He is approachable, kind, extremely intelligent and an excellent example of a professional physician. His impact on student, residents and faculty in the department of emergency medicine speaks for himself. He teaches while also leaving room for individual development. He doesn’t spoon feed information, but challenges the learners to grow individually and develop their own skills. I am lucky to call him a friend, mentor and attending physician.
George Willis is constantly finding ways to be an effective teacher in the busy emergency department. His approachability and willingness to drop what he’s doing so we can understand a difficult concept is something that most faculty should learn from. I enjoy working with Dr. Willis so much and believe that he is most deserving of this reward.
Dr. Willis continues to educate students and residents every day, whether on shift with white board teaching or in the lecture hall with engaging and educational lectures. His enthusiasm for teaching and resident education is on full display every day.
Aside from being a true pleasure to work with, Dr. Willis tirelessly and consistently puts the residents and our educational experience first. He played a huge role in changing and improving the quality of our curriculum by facilitating more faculty-led lectures and diversifying the topics/lecture styles. He himself gives such engaging and informative lectures that he has been selected to speak at a variety of different EM conferences, especially for endocrine-related illnesses. He makes himself readily accessible to residents for feedback, advice, and teaching both on and off shift. It’s easy to see not only how wonderful a teacher Dr. Willis is, but also how much joy he finds in teaching us.
Dr. Willis is always present and provides good commentary/feedback at our grand rounds, his lectures are as interesting as they are engaging. Always makes learning a priority both at grand rounds and on shift. Never a boring learning opportunity.
Dr. Willis has created a didactic experience for the residency that has far exceeded even my expectations. The lectures and activities are focused, relevant, and practical. He’s a tremendous lecturer—engaging, funny, and clear. He is an extraordinary on-shift educator, somehow finding time to make sure we learn about each of our patients. And as someone like myself who plans to pursue education as a component of my career, he makes time to mentor and identify opportunities for me to grow.
Dr. Willis demonstrates multiple attributes that exemplify his pedagogical abilities. Apart from being an astute clinician, he always finds time in a chaotic ER to prioritize resident and medical student education with “glass board” chalk talks.
He has also been instrumental in revolutionizing the grand round lecture curriculum by incorporating more attending physician led lectures. He also frequently (weekly) gives his own grand round lectures that are always simple to follow and of national conference quality. He also mentors and reviews most resident led lectures. Dr. Willis has also been successful at recruiting national names in emergency for grand round lectures such as Dr. Rezaie. Dr. Willis, in his short time here, has also has initiated combined didactic conference with our neighbors across town, BAMC EM residents. We have had mass casualty events and jeopardy with them. He also ventured outside our EM department and lectures to the community at EM related symposium. He, for example, just led am EKG workshop to community EM docs, SAFD EMT/paramedics, nurses, NPs, and PAs. Above all, Dr. Willis does all this with open arms. He is truly a physician many of my coresidents aspire to emulate. I cannot think of anyone more deserving of this award than Dr. Willis.