Dr. Michael J. Haller Family Practice Outstanding Student Award
In 1970, Creighton University School of Medicine established the Family Practice Division of the Department of Preventive Medicine. Dr. Michael J. Haller, M.D. was the first head of the FP department. In August of that same year, an approved program began for training residents in family medicine. A Family Practice Clinic was opened at 3374 South 13th Street in Omaha which was staffed by residents and which served not only to help alleviate the shortage of primary care physicians, but also as a developing ground for the new specialty of Family Practice.
In June 1971 a “Pilot program” was begun with Creighton interns at St. Joseph Hospital. Dr. Haller established a program of airplane flight instruction for interns and residents in order to make practice in a rural community more attractive. He believed that faster mobility to larger cities would increase the desirability of rural community medicine and may help alleviate the rural physician shortage in Nebraska and other Midwestern states. Creighton was the only medical school in the country to have such a program.
This award is given by the Nebraska Academy of Family Physicians to an outstanding senior student entering Family Practice
- Emily Anderson, 2008
- Mel Roca, 2007
- Paul Vu, 2006
- Nicole D. Westfall, 2005
- Amy J. Edman, 2004
