2026 APCCMPD Awards 
Call for Submissions

NOMINATION DEADLINE:  November 3, 2025

Purpose

The Mid-Career Educator Award (MCEA) honors mid-career educators who are actively engaged in enhancing the practice and profession of pulmonary, critical care, and pulmonary critical care medicine through education. The medical educator selected for this award is actively making significant and innovative contributions to medical education. These contributions should include excellence in education beyond the local level, with recognition of the recipient's excellence, which may include teaching, directing, mentoring, writing, speaking, curriculum development, educational innovation, and program leadership, ideally impacting multiple levels of learners including medical students, residents and fellows at the local, regional and national levels.

This award recognizes the diverse pathways to educational excellence, celebrating educators who demonstrate outstanding contributions through educational program development, innovative teaching methods, measurable educational outcomes, curriculum design, and transformational approaches to medical education. The award honors mid-career educators across all practice settings who show exceptional promise and achievement in advancing medical education within their specialty.

The MCEA celebrates educational leaders who, within their career stage, have begun to influence medical education beyond their local institutions through mentorship of other educators, development of educational programs with broader impact, and contributions that inspire peers in the medical education community. Candidates should be within 6-15 years of fellowship.

Eligibility and Award Criteria

The following serves as guidance for this award. Nominees should:

• have developed a supportive environment for teaching and scholarship.
• have demonstrated a commitment to mentorship and established a track record for successful mentorship.
• have provided instruction on teaching skills such as curricular design, teaching methods, and learning and program assessment.
• be a successful advocate and guide in administrative, organizational, and professional matters for junior clinician-educators.
• demonstrate personal concern for their mentees and support their personal and professional development.
• value teaching within pulmonary and/or critical care medicine.
• demonstrate leadership skills and professionalism.
• place an equal or greater emphasis on the professional development of their trainees than on self-promotion or advancement.

A recipient of the national award will:

• be a pulmonary, critical care or sleep clinician, at the level of Assistant or Associate Professor (or equivalent), within 6-15 years of fellowship, who spends most of their time serving as a clinician-educator.
• be a clinician-educator whose major portion of time is spent in fellow-level education.
• be recognized by Fellows-in-Training as an outstanding educator and by their peers as having made substantial contributions to the field of medical education through various means at the local, regional and national levels. Nominations must reflect excellence in this area above all else.
  
• be a Program Director, Associate Program Director, or faculty within an APCCMPD member fellowship program.
• have already made contributions toward APCCMPD’s vision of fostering excellence in training and mentoring of the next generation of educators in pulmonary and critical care medicine by way of contributing to APCCMPD activities.

A recipient may not be:

• a current member of the APCCMPD Board of Directors (BOD).

Nomination Process

Nominees for the MCEA may be self-nominated or nominated by a peer. Individuals who wish to nominate a mid-career educator should first obtain the approval of the prospective nominee.

The MCEA Nomination Form will require the following:

• One PDF File, which contains:
1. A Cover Page (download)
2. A brief description of the nominee’s impact as a clinician-educator in pulmonary, critical care, and/or pulmonary critical care fellowship training. The applicant's statement should align with the award purpose and attributes outlined in the scoring criteria.
3. Two (2) Letters of Support that should describe how the nominee has demonstrated excellence as an educator of Fellows-in-Training within pulmonary, critical care, and/or pulmonary critical care fellowship training. 
4. The nominee’s current CV.
5. A .jpg-format color photograph of the nominee (head and shoulders). Headshots will be used in the APCCMPD 2026 Annual Conference Awards Program. Submitted headshots will not be shared with the Awards Selection Committee (ASC). 
6. Confirmation that, if selected, awardee will attend the upcoming APCCMPD 2026 Annual Conference to be held March 4-6 in Scottsdale, AZ. 

*To convert a document to PDF, the easiest method is to "Save As" a PDF document within the application you are using (like Microsoft Word or Google Docs).

1. Open the document: Open the file you wish to convert to PDF.
2. Access the "Save As" option: Click on "File" and then "Save As".
3. Choose PDF as the file type: In the "Save as type" dropdown menu, select "PDF (*.pdf)".

Selection Process

• The Educator and Funding Awards Review Committee will review all nominees. The committee will develop a ranked slate of the top qualifiers, based on the eligibility criteria. The Educator and Funding Awards Review Committee Chair will present the ranked slate of the top qualifiers to the APCCMPD BOD for voting.
• One or two nominees will be awarded annually.
• Nominees not awarded the MCEA will be reconsidered for a subsequent year, as long as the nominee is eligible. Nominees will be given the opportunity to update their nomination packet annually.
• In years when no MCEA candidates are nominated, the APCCMPD BOD reserves the right to award an individual whom they determines meets the Eligibility and Review Criteria, without submission of two Letters of Support.

Scoring Criteria

Nominees will be rated on a scale of 0-5 in each area below. The candidates will be ranked using the sum of the three scored criteria. The total score and the score for the individual criterion will be presented to the Award Review Committee.

APCCMPD Engagement

• Reviewers will assign a score reflecting the candidate’s contributions to the advancement of the field through their engagement with the Association of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Program Directors (APCCMPD). This may include participation on APCCMPD committees, taskforces, and workgroups; creation of content such as blogs, podcasts, courses, presentations, posters, abstracts, etc.; application to APCCMPD Awards; and attendance at the APCCMPD Annual Conference or other courses.
• This criterion evaluates the candidate's engagement with the APCCMPD based on their involvement in various activities such as attending events, participating in committees or workgroups, creating content, applying for awards, and demonstrating leadership.

Awardee Recognition

The APCCMPD will present the MCEA recipient with a plaque at the APCCMPD 2026 Annual Conference. The APCCMPD will also recognize the awardee (and all nominees) in its quarterly newsletter, on the APCCMPD website, and in the APCCMPD 2026 Annual Conference Awards Program.

Submission Information