CHA Psychiatrist Receives Harvard Medical School Teaching Award
Dr. Todd Griswold honored with Sandra and Arnold Gold Award for Humanistic Teaching
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Cambridge Health Alliance psychiatrist Todd Griswold, MD, received the Sandra and Arnold Gold Award for Humanistic Teaching from Harvard Medical School (HMS) at the Daniel D. Federman Teaching Award Celebration on Oct. 24. The award was established in 2019 in honor of Drs. Sandra and Arnold Gold and their remarkable decades-long contributions to humanistic medical education nationally and locally. It is presented annually to an inspirational HMS faculty educator at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) who models compassion, integrity, respect, and service in teaching Harvard Medical School students, residents, fellows, or peers.
In addition to his role as an outpatient psychiatrist, Dr. Griswold is the medical director for the CHA Center for Mindfulness and Compassion. He is co-director of medical student education in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and was psychiatry clerkship site director at CHA for 14 years. He has precepted in the HMS-Cambridge Integrated Clerkship for 19 years and has taught preclerkship psychiatry to HMS students for more than 30 years.
In his nomination letter, his students and colleagues described his profound commitment to both academic teaching and patients as inspirational, saying he is a consummate clinician, teacher, and leader and an incredible supervisor. One student wrote, "Dr. Griswold's optimism, positivity, and compassion are infectious and provide powerful examples of how we may improve other people's lives through the relationships we build with them."
Harvard Medical School annually bestows teaching awards on its most outstanding teachers, who, through their excellence in teaching, will impact and influence the professional lives of students long after graduation. The awards presented at the Daniel D. Federman Teaching Award Celebration are HMS's most visible recognition of the teaching accomplishments of a highly select group of the School's leading medical educators and reflect, in a small but tangible way, how much teachers are valued by their students and by HMS.