Faith Atai, MD
The AGS Clinician of the Year Award recognizes exceptional health professionals who deliver outstanding care to older adults and who model the importance of geriatrics for our country. This year’s honoree is Faith Atai, MD, a skilled clinician and medical administrator with a dedication to teaching geriatrics trainees of all levels. Dr. Atai is an Associate Professor in the Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), as well as Medical Director of the UT Physicians Center for Healthy Aging and the Bayland Geriatric Health Center.
A board-certified physician in family medicine with a certificate of added qualifications in geriatrics, Dr. Atai has played a vital role in expanding outpatient clinical geriatrics programs at UTHealth, where she helped establish a new outpatient clinic tailored for older adults in 2010. She currently serves as Medical Director for two UTHealth clinics, as well as Director of the UT Physicians House Calls Program. At these sites, she devotedly teaches medical students, trains clinical fellows and attending physicians, and supervises nurse practitioners, inspiring them to take exceptional care of older adults. For all her documented accomplishments, Dr. Atai’s colleagues, mentees, and patients may appreciate her most for her more intangible contributions—her empathetic listening skills and compassionate bedside manner.
Dr. Atai counts among her patients not only those she sees at UTHealth, but the hospice patients she serves as a palliative care physician with VITAS Hospice. From 2012 to 2016, she worked as an attending physician and medical director at New Century Hospice in Houston, TX.
Past Recipients of the Clinician of the Year Award
2021 Faith Atai, MD
2020 James Lin, DO, MS, MHSA
2019 Kellie Flood, MD
2018 J. Eugene Lammers, MD, MPH, FACP, AGSF
2017 Fatima Sheikh, MD, CMD, MPH
2016 Lisa Tank, MD, FACP
2015 Ronald S. Duemler, MD, MS, CMD
2014 Pamela S. Tronetti, DO, AGSF
2013 Rosemary D. Laird, MD, MHSA
2012 Niharika N Suchak, MBBS, MHS, FACP
2011 Margaret A. Noel, MD
2010 Jerome Epplin, MD, AGSF
2009 Michelle S. Eslami, MD
2008 Valisa Saunders, MN, APRN, BC, GNP
2007 Rebecca D. Elon, MD, MPH
2006 F. Michael Gloth, II, MD, FACP
2005 Henry Schneiderman, MD, FACP
2004 Roy Bradford Whitney, Jr., MD
2003 Taylor Graves, MD
2002 Jerry M. Earll, MD
2001 Daniel Haimowitz, MD, FACP, CMD
2000 Steven C. Castle, MD
1999 Samuel C. Durso, MD
1998 Mary Ann Forciea, MD
1995 Mary A. Johnson-Crockett, MD
1994 Gary E. Applebaum, MD
1993 Francis Salerno, MD