Each year, the NEOMED Alumni Association recognizes alumni and other individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership. While award winners are typically honored at the annual Alumni Reunion and Awards Dinner, the event has been postponed until 2021, due to COVID-19. To honor the recipients now as well, the accomplishments of each recipient will be detailed in articles in The Pulse.
Today ‘s honoree is Dinah Fedyna, M.D. (’82), a former Northeast Ohio Medical University clinical professor of family and community medicine and this year’s recipient of the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Service Award.
Dr. Fedyna is well known and admired in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and among practicing physicians. Widely respected, she has presented numerous times at the national level on the topic of medical student education.
Dr. Fedyna has been a family medicine faculty member, residency educator and medical student educator for 30 years, serving as a role model for many. One example of her commitment to serving the underserved is the bimonthly dinner that she established, feeding more than 150 members of the underserved community in Youngstown and sending them home with lunch bags and essential care products after each event. As well as serving as a night out for the guests, the dinners also encouraged medical and pharmacy student to assist by offering blood pressure screenings and health information.
“Dr. Fedyna is well known to thousands of NEOMED graduates. The selection committee members can all contribute a time in which Dinah made a positive impact on them, whether it was as a student, a colleague or a friend. Probably the best way to say it is, Dr. Fedyna is a NEOMED physician and that should speak volumes.” Doug Moses, M.D. (’95), Chair of the Alumni Awards Committee