Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award: Faith Atai, MD
Faith Atai, MD, associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, is the 2025 recipient of the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, presented by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.
The Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award annually honors faculty who are exemplary in their compassion and sensitivity in the delivery of care to patients and their families, who administer scientifically excellent clinical care, and who serve as role models to students.
Atai bases her teaching philosophy on students’ goals and what they may be interested in learning.
“I try to tie in whatever I’m going to teach to something that they are interested in, and I let the student do a lot of the driving,” she said. “Then I throw in the key elements that I believe they should know.”
Atai also says that she believes in teaching by example and that if you’re an educator you’re teaching when you’re not even speaking by how you behave and what you do.
“I prioritize people,” she said. “I believe that every person can learn, and my job is to find out how to make what I have to teach them interesting and relevant to them.”
Atai credits her mentors, Nahid Rianon, MD; Holly Holmes, MD; and Simbo Chiadika, MD, for helping to guide her career and lead her to this award. But she also mentioned that some of her mentors are the students she teaches, because they teach her as well.
“When I won the award, I was still sitting in shock in the medical school, and I saw one of the students who nominated and I told her I won the award,” Atai said. “She told me that I deserve it. I said maybe I was the only one who was nominated, and she said that I needed to start believing in myself. So, she taught me something too.”
Atai earned her medical degree from the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital in Nigeria in 1991. She completed a medical internship at St. Luke’s Hospital Anua in Uyo, Nigeria before completing her residency at UTHealth Houston in 2008 followed by her geriatric fellowship in 2009.
Previous winners of the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award are: Brandi Karnes, MD, 2024; Erin Furr Stimming, MD, 2023; Nahid Rianon, MBBS, DrPH, 2022; Robby Wesley, DO, 2021 Jennifer Swails, MD, 2020; Milton “Chip” Routt, Jr., MD, 2019; Daniel J. Freet, MD, 2018; Michelle S. Barratt, MD, MPH, 2017; Francisco Fuentes, MD, 2016; Heinrich Taegtmeyer, MD, 2015; Joseph Love, DO, 2014; Joanne Oakes, MD, 2013; Stefano Sdringola-Maranga, MD, 2012; Saleem Khan, MD, 2011; Gus W. Krucke, MD, 2010; James “Red” Duke, MD, 2009; Pedro Mancias, MD, 2008; Keith Hoots, MD, 2006; Larry C. Gilstrap III, MD, 2005; Virginia A. Moyer, MD, MPH, 2004; Cheves M. Smythe, MD, 2003; Oscar Rosales, MD, 2002; Philip C. Johnson, MD, 2001; Philip R. Orlander, MD, 2000; and John R. Stroehlein, MD, 1999.