The Dean's Excellence Awards are annual honors awarded to select UAB School of Medicine faculty for excellence in the areas of teaching, service, research, mentorship, and diversity enhancement. Awardees are chosen through a peer-review process and faciliated by a member of the dean's leadership team. This year, the school recognized 16 faculty for their outstanding achievements, and UAB Pathology is excited to announce two faculty from our department have received the award: Silvio H. Litovsky, M.D., Professor, Anatomic Pathology, for teaching, and Isam Eltoum, M.D., M.B.A., Professor, Anatomic Pathology, and Vice Chair, Quality and Patient Safety, for service. 

Silvio H. Litovsky, M.D.

Dr. Litovsky is awarded the senior faculty Dean's Excellence in Teaching Award. He is an educator as well as a cardiovascular pathologist who has had an achievement-filled career since its start. 

Litovsky earned his M.D. from the University of Buenos Aires Medical School, Argentina, in 1977. He received his board certification from the American Board of Pathology, Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, in 1995 and is licensed in six states. 

Litovsky joined UAB in 2004 and taught the Cardiovascular Pathology Course in UAB Medical School until the MS-1 Organ Module was instituted in 2007. Since that time, he has served as the Cardiovascular Module Director. Each year, his module has been nominated for the Argus Award for a total of 21 nominations and 18 awards. His achievements in teaching have been recognized with the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014. 

He taught the graduate school course, "Biology of Disease," and gives four lectures each year on the histology and pathology of heart disease. He has led Cardiovascular Laboratory Demonstrations at the Children's Hospital of Alabama every other month since 2017 and also became the Alpha Omega Honor Medical Society UAB Councilor in 2015. Litovsky has acted as an advisor to the Medical Spanish interest group since 2014; an advisor to the Pathology interest group since 2018; and a department liaison with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion since 2015. As CAP Alabama State Commissioner and Inspector, when inspecting a laboratory, Litovsky and his group teach and advise on best pathology and laboratory practices. 

He is a standout teacher in the department's Autopsy Section, signing out every explanted heart with the residents. Students and residents often praise him as an instructor who will go to great lengths to explain a concept until it is clearly understood. By his own account, he gets great joy from seeing students and residents learn. 

 Isam Eltoum, M.D., M.B.A

Dr. Eltoum is awarded the senior faculty 2020 Dean's Excellence Award in Service. A native of Sudan, he earned his MBBS (1983) and a Master of Science in Pathology (1990) from the University of Khartoum, Sudan. After three years as a research fellow at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, he completed a pathology residency at George Washington University (1996) and two fellowships at UAB, in Cytopathology and Surgical Pathology. He joined the UAB Department of Pathology as an assistant professor in 1998. 

Eltoum is board certified in Anatomic Pathology and in Cytopathology and has been head of the UAB Cytopathology Section since 2001. This section serves most clinical departments at UAB Medicine. He brought this section to prominence when the American Society of Cytopathology nominated UAB Cytology as a Center of Excellence in 2004-2006. 

In 2002, Eltoum earned his MBA from UAB. He has excelled as a physician-scientist and diagnostic pathologist, and was promoted to professor in 2006. He serves as the vice chair for Quality and Patient Safety for the department. 

Eltoum spends most of his time on the diagnostic service in both Cytology and Surgical Pathology. Beyond his role as vice chair for Quality and Patient Safety, where he is responsible for a variety of patient safety, risk reduction/mitigation, and regulatory management tasks, he also serves as Quality Officer and co-chair of the Quality and Utilization Committee. He has serves as a member of the Dean's Council and Health Information Management and was involved with various quality and patient safety committees. Over the course of his career, he has served as a member of NIH study sections, pathology trade organization committees or editorial boards.

In addition to his clinical work, Eltoum is well-published and has mentored junior faculty and several pathology residents; trained more than 30 fellows when he was the Cytopathology Program Director; and has served as a thesis advisor for Ph.D. students. 

Please join us in congratulating Drs. Litovsky and Eltoum on the recognition of their outstanding contributions to the Department of Pathology and School of Medicine.