This outstanding achievement in Family Medicine is unlike any other in West Virginia. The emphasis of this award is to acknowledge not only professional success, but the selfless promotion of the practice of family medicine throughout our region through community service, teaching and mentoring, and serving as a resource to future family physicians. This past summer, the Family Medicine Foundation of WV Executive Board conducted a search for the first recipient through an online application process and we are proud to announce this year’s recipient is Dr. Stephen M. Petrany.
Dr. Petrany originally hails from Brooklyn, New York. He completed his undergraduate and medical school at Georgetown University and followed with a residency in family medicine at Fairfax Hospital in Virginia. He served as medical director of the Lawrence County Health Department in Chesapeake Ohio from 1983 to 1987 while maintaining a busy practice. He returned to Connecticut where he had a private practice and also spent part of his time caring for homeless patients. In 1989 he returned and settled in West Virginia, and since then has been actively involved in improving health care for the state through medical education, community outreach, and leadership. He has been a member of Marshall University’s department of Family and Community Health since 1989 and currently serves as Department Chair. His peers point to his ability to identify talented individuals and nurture those relationships as a main reason for the culture of excellence in the program. He has innovated highly successful, novel programs such as the Accelerated Residency Program, the Marshall Primary Care Curriculum, the Paul Ambrose Health Policy fellowship as well as educational tracks in international health and wilderness medicine.
Dr. Petrany was one of the motivators behind the founding of the Ebenezer Outreach Clinic in 1990, a clinic that serves the uninsured and under insured people of Huntington. He has had various roles in this organization from medical director to board member. Recently he has played a vital role in obtaining grants to further augment care of these patients.
During the opioid epidemic, Dr. Petrany took the task of overseeing the school’s division of addiction science and continues to serve as director of that program. He was instrumental in creating PROACT, the Hope House and Project Hope. He also worked to provide medical coverage for Recovery Point, and the Neonatal Transition Unit. He interacts with policy makers in the state to continue to advocate and to share the successes of these programs.
Congratulations Dr. Stephen Petrany.
