PHILADELPHIA, PA—The National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME), an independent, nonprofit organization that provides competency assessments for osteopathic medical licensure and related health care professions, presented the NBOME Clark Award for Patient Advocacy to Kenneth B. Simons, MD, at the organization’s annual Board of Directors Gala on December 14.
Simons’ career spans over 35 years as an ophthalmologist, in medical education and medical regulation, and as a tireless public servant across the house of medicine. His extraordinary list of leadership appointments includes serving on the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board, and as a member and then chair of the Board of Directors of the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) from 2021-2022. In his role at FSMB, he was an outspoken and ardent supporter of osteopathic medicine, the NBOME, and the COMLEX-USA examination program.
Simons earned his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine, completed a residency in ophthalmology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill and a fellowship in ophthalmic pathology at the Jules Stein Eye Institute, University of California Los Angeles.
Much of his distinguished career has been spent as a professor of ophthalmology and pathology and senior associate dean for graduate medical education and accreditation at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the executive director and designated institutional official for Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals, Inc. Under his leadership, Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals was the inaugural recipient of the now annually awarded Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Gold Foundation Baldwin Award.
In addition, Dr. Simons has a strong interest in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in medical education. He established the Underrepresented in Medicine Committee at his institution, and at the same time served as principal investigator for two grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) designed to increase diversity in health-related research and provide research training for undergraduate minority students.
While at the NIH, Simons was a member of the Peer Review Committee, Study Section on Increasing Diversity in Health-Related Research, and a member of the Peer Review Committee, Study Section on NIH Director’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-funded Pathfinder Award to Promote Diversity in the Scientific Workforce.
Simons has also been an active leader in both national and state-level organizations. In 2022, he was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel A. Cardona, EdD, to serve as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation, which evaluates the standards of accreditation applied to foreign medical schools and determines the comparability of those standards to standards applied to medical schools in the United States.
He is a past chair of the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Section on Medical Schools Governing Council and served as the section’s delegate to the AMA House of Delegates. He is also a past member of the ACGME Board of Directors, having served on its Executive Committee, and as chair for both ACGME Policies and Procedures Committee and its Committee on Requirements. He also served on the Board of Directors of the National Resident Matching Program.
Simons was a member of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting body for U.S. MD-granting schools, and currently serves as a field secretary for that organization. In the field of medical licensure, Dr. Simons was initially appointed to the Wisconsin State Medical Examining Board in 2011, where he served for nine years as vice chair and chair.
In 2019, Simons was concerned with the lack of understanding by some residency programs of osteopathic medical graduates and their COMLEX-USA licensing examinations in the new single GME accreditation system and collaborated with the NBOME on a series of videos designed to educate program directors and to advocate for equity, inclusion, and wellness for DO applicants. Specifically, that when licensing examinations are considered as part of holistic review for DO residency applicants, COMLEX-USA is the valid and appropriate assessment to be used.
His exemplary work in graduate medical education, medical regulation and licensure, and advocacy for inclusion and belonging, has served to elevate medical education and practice, thus protecting patients, students, and trainees at all levels of the health care delivery system.
The NBOME Clark Award for Patient Advocacy recognizes individuals who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to patient safety, patient protection, and quality of care, specifically in their advocacy for patient’s access to high quality osteopathic medical care and the importance of osteopathic assessment for licensure in that regard. The award is named after longtime NBOME Board public member and leader in medical regulation and state medical licensure, Gary R. Clark.
Previous recipients of the NBOME Clark Award for Patient Advocacy are:
- 2023 | R. David Henderson, JD
- 2022 | Susan I. Belanger, PhD, MA, RN
- 2021 | J. Michael Wieting, DO, MEd
- 2019 | Kim Edward LeBlanc, MD, PhD
- 2018 | Barbara E. Walker, DO
- 2017 | Martin Crane, MD
- 2016 | Gary R. Clark