Among the awards presented were the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Trailblazer Award, the President’s Award and the Special Recognition Awards.

“ACLM is delighted to honor the 2023 award winners for the dedication, expertise and passion they have contributed to the rapidly growing field of lifestyle medicine,” ACLM President Beth Frates, MD, FACLM, DipABLM, said. “Thanks to these leaders’ remarkable achievements, more health professionals are using evidence-based therapeutic lifestyle medicine to treat and sometimes reverse chronic disease, individuals worldwide are embracing healthier lifestyle habits, and more health systems and policymakers are recognizing lifestyle medicine as a solution to the epidemic of lifestyle-related chronic disease. ACLM is grateful for their service.”

Lifetime Achievement

ACLM awarded its Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously to Hans Diehl, DrHSc, MPH, FACN. Dr. Diehl, a visionary in the field of lifestyle medicine who dedicated his career to helping people live healthier and longer, died Aug. 2. His wife, Lily Pan Diehl, along with his children and grandchildren, accepted the award on his behalf.

This award recognizes a lifetime of achievement in the field and is the highest honor ACLM bestows. It recognizes a significant body of work over a significant span of time that has advanced the field of lifestyle medicine, and, in the process, paved the way for others to follow.

Dr. Diehl, founder of the Lifestyle Medicine Institute and the Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP), was a clinical professor of preventive medicine at Loma Linda University and a founding member of ACLM and its Board of Advisors. He was also the first research and education director at the Pritikin Longevity Center, where he aspired to make better health accessible to the masses. The over 85,000 participants and clinical results published in 45 peer-reviewed scientific journals are a testament to Dr. Diehl’s passion and legacy.

Trailblazer Award

The 2023 Trailblazer Award recipient is James Rippe, MD, founder and director of Rippe Lifestyle Medicine, a professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and founder and editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.

The Trailblazer Award recognizes an individual who is currently providing leadership in the field of lifestyle medicine, helping strengthen the foundation laid by others, while advancing it through innovation.

In the past 25 years, Dr. Rippe has established and operated the largest research organization in the world exploring how daily habits and actions impact short- and long-term health and quality of life. That organization, Rippe Lifestyle Institute (RLI), has published hundreds of papers that form the scientific basis for the fields of lifestyle medicine and high-performance health.

President’s Award

Dr. Frates presented the 2023 President’s Award to Sami Bég, MD, MPA, MPH, FACLM, an ACLM member since 2008 who founded digitalLM as a one-stop, turn-key digital health agency that helps lifestyle medicine clinicians succeed online with professional website development, SEO and more.

The President’s Award is given in recognition of exceptional dedication to ACLM as an organization in advancing its vision and mission as well as service to the field of lifestyle medicine through exemplary contributions to ACLM.

Dr. Bég was elected to ACLM’s Board of Directors in 2012, when he also served as founding chair of ACLM’s Business Development Committee. He chaired the ACLM Awards Committee from 2015 to 2022 and helped Dr. Frates establish the Donald A. Pegg Student Leadership Award in support of Lifestyle Medicine Interest Groups (LMIGS) and student leaders. He also served for many years on the ACLM Fellow Review Panel.

Special Recognition Awards

ACLM awarded Special Recognition Awards in four categories:

Health Systems
Koushik Reddy, MD, DipABLM, FACC, FACLM, Certified Lifestyle Medicine Intensivist, is a foremost champion of lifestyle medicine at the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System (VA) in Tampa, Fla., where he serves as an interventional cardiologist. He has tirelessly promoted ACLM’s complimentary 5.5-hour CME/CE accredited Lifestyle Medicine and Food as Medicine Essentials course locally and throughout the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Graduate and Undergraduate Education
Michelle Tollefson, MD, DipABLM, FACOG, FACLM, a professor in the Health Professions Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver, created and oversees the nation’s very first bachelor in lifestyle medicine program, enabling students to “major” in the field of lifestyle medicine.

Clinics/Business and Innovation
Cliff Morris, MD, DipABLM, and his team at the Morris Cardiovascular and Risk Reduction Institute in Chester, Va., have enthusiastically integrated lifestyle medicine into their cardiology practice, embracing various initiatives such as facilitating group medical appointments, prescribing dietary recommendations, and allocating office space for an on-site gym where patients can exercise under the guidance of a medical fitness specialist.

Health Policy and Government Affairs
The United States Air Force Lifestyle and Performance Medicine (L&PM) Working Group was chartered in 2019 with 20 core members. From this working group, the Lifestyle and Performance Coalition of the Interested (COI) was created as a grassroots effort to reach Department of Defense-affiliated healthcare professionals with a mission to infuse L&PM into every aspect of the Military Health System.

The award was accepted by: Air Force Colonel Mary Anne Kiel, MD, FAAP, FACLM, DipABLM; Retired Army Major Kati Monti, DMSc, PA-C, DipABLM; Air Force Major Jeff Smith, DSW, LCSW, BCD; Air Force Captain Matt Diotte, PA-C, DipACLM; Air Force Second Lieutenant Kevin Puri, OMS-4; and Former Air Force Flight Surgeon Regan Stiegmann, DO, MPH, DipABLM, FACLM.

ABOUT ACLM
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine is the nation’s medical professional society advancing lifestyle medicine as the foundation for a redesigned, value-based and equitable healthcare delivery system, leading to whole-person health. ACLM educates, equips, empowers and supports its members through quality, evidence-based education, certification and research to identify and eradicate the root cause of chronic disease, with a clinical outcome goal of health restoration as opposed to disease management.

Media Contact

Alexander Branch, American College of Lifestyle Medicine, 19719835383, [email protected], American College of Lifestyle Medicine

SOURCE American College of Lifestyle Medicine