Dr. Charles Scoggins , Professor and Vice Chair of Surgery, has won the University of Louisville 2015 President's Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching. A dynamic scholar, Dr. Scoggins has risen rapidly in the academic ranks and has become one of the nation's most well-known and respected surgical oncologists. He served as the Associate Director of Medical Student Education in the Department of Surgery for five years. During this time, he made important and lasting changes to improve the medical student educational experience on the Surgery service. In 2006, Dr. Scoggins was instrumental in establishing the ACGME-accredited two-year Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program at the University of Louisville School of Medicine to train general surgeons in the art and science of modern academic surgical oncology. Dr. Scoggins is Director of the fellowship program.

In addition to his professional accolades and surgical acumen, Dr. Scoggins is best known in the Department of Surgery for his mentoring of our surgery residents, surgical oncology fellows and medical students. He has mentored many students including undergraduate students who have become medical students, as well as medical students who have gone on to become surgical residents. A perennial favorite among students, Dr. Scoggins has been awarded for his role as mentor and has received the Hiram C. Polk, Jr., MD Outstanding Educator Award twice and the Robert L. Fulton, MD Mentorship Award. Dr. Scoggins is so popular as an educator that he is continually surrounded by students, residents and fellows they clamor to work with him in the clinic, the operating room, and to have him as their research mentor.

One might surmise that his overwhelming popularity with trainees is because he is an easy grader or simply a nice person who makes learning a stress-free and comfortable experience. However, like the best professors, Dr. Scoggins is popular because he challenges students, residents, and fellows at every turn. He turns every patient, every X-ray, every pathology report, every laboratory test into a teaching point; his profession as a surgical oncologist is his classroom, constantly on the move.

Dr. Scoggins said the greatest achievement that an educator can have is the success of his/her students. His motivation for development of his students, residents and fellows is that if they succeed, I succeed. Their successes are my accolades.