Thank you!
We are so grateful to all who attended the 17th Annual DFM Department Fair & Scholarship Forum on April 8th, 2026! It was wonderful to gather together in person to share cutting edge scholarly work. More about the Fair is available here.
Pictured L to R: Bianca Frogner & Muriel Lavallee; Aishwarya Iyer, Sarah Seager, Nova Rivera, Theo J. Eldore, Rachel E. Geyer, Nikki Gentile, Kevin McCawley; K. McCawley, Natalie Oster, A. Iyer.
Congratulations to these Department Fair & Scholarship Forum 2026 Award Winners:
Best Abstract – Comparing Physicians’ Access to Behavioral Health Resource in Rural and Urban Practices. Holly A. Andrilla, MS; Natalia Oster PhD; Xiaochu Hu, PhD; Rosha McCoy, MD; Nailah Russell, BS; Michael Dill MA; Bianca Frogner PhD
Best oral presentation (people’s choice): TRANS-CEND: Transgender-Centered Focus Group Perspectives on Advance Care Planning. Theo J. Eldore, MD; Rachel E. Geyer, MPH; Nova Rivera, MSW, MPH, LICSW; Sarah Seager, MPH (c); Jalen Smith, MEd, MSW(c); Jackie Raetz, MD; Nikki L. Gentile, MD, PhD
Best poster presentation (people’s choice): Traveling Out-of-State for First Trimester Abortion: Experiences and Perspectives of US Patients After Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court Decision. Amanda Debuo Der, MSc; Samantha N. Fredman; Lucrecia Mena-Meléndez, PhD, MA; Elissa M. Brown, MPH; Wendy Norman, MD, MHSc, FCFP; Emily M. Godfrey, MD, MPH; Sarah B. Munro, PhD, MA; Anna E. Fiastro, PhD, MPH, MEM
Ignite Resident Research Award: Muriel Lavallee, MD, MPA
The award was presented to Dr. Akash Sharma (on screen) by Dr. Andy Ury, Dr. Joey Nelson, UWFM Residency Director, and Dr. Bianca Frogner, Interim Department Chair.
Congratulations to Dr. Akash Sharma, winner of the Entering Class of 1978 Resident Innovation Award
We also took advantage of this in-person gathering to publicly announce that Dr. Akash Sharma is the winner of the Entering Class of 1978 Resident Innovation Award. This gift, donated by Andy Ury and Steve Tarnoff, seeks to recognize outstanding Family Medicine innovation in the past year by a resident in the Department of Family Medicine. The gift comes with a monetary award of $5000.
Dr. Sharma developed and implemented a multidisciplinary shared medical group visit model for patients with prediabetes at Harborview Family Medicine Clinic, representing a novel care delivery approach within this clinical setting. The program improves patient engagement, health literacy, and lifestyle-based self-management for a high-need, diverse population while fostering patient community, supporting culturally responsive education, and enhancing team-based care across pharmacy, social work, and clinic staff. Importantly, this work moved beyond ideation to execution—Dr. Sharma built clinic infrastructure from the ground up, conducted patient outreach and recruitment, facilitated multiple group visits, iteratively refined the curriculum based on feedback, and successfully navigated operational and change-management barriers. He developed durable educational materials and workflows designed to persist beyond his residency and positioned the model for future spread within primary care. Through inclusive, collaborative, and humble leadership—along with system-level dissemination as the sole resident presenter at a UW Medicine physician meeting—Dr. Sharma demonstrated exceptional initiative, adaptability, and leadership in primary care delivery innovation.