Margaret Dunn receives prestigious award from Association of Women Surgeons

Margaret Dunn, M.D., serves as executive associate dean in the Boonshoft School of Medicine and president and CEO of Wright State Physicians.

The Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) has honored Margaret Dunn, M.D., M.B.A., FACS, with its most prestigious award, the Nina Starr Braunwald Award, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the advancement of women in surgery. She was presented with the award at the annual AWS Fall Conference in San Francisco on Oct. 24.

A pioneer in advancing women in surgery, Dunn was the first woman to practice general surgery in the Dayton region. Now specializing in breast surgery, Dunn serves as executive associate dean at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. As second in command of the medical school, Dunn has supported the role of women in the Department of Surgery, which is currently led by Mary McCarthy, M.D., and is one of six academic surgery departments in the nation with a woman chair. In addition, she serves as president and CEO of Wright State Physicians (WSP), the region’s largest academic multispecialty physician group with more than 126 doctors practicing in a wide range of specialties.

Dunn is certified in general surgery by the American Board of Surgery and is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. She was recently elected to a three-year term as a member of the Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). She is past president of both the Association of Women Surgeons and the Ohio Chapter of the American College of Surgeons, and has held state and national appointments in the American College of Surgeons.

“Dr. Dunn is a great role model for all of us,” said Leigh Neumayer, M.D., professor of surgery at the University of Utah Medical School and past president of AWS. “She has successfully combined a very busy academic surgical career with family. I feel very fortunate to have worked so closely with Dr. Dunn over the years and am now very happy that we are both serving as Regents of the American College of Surgeons.”

Dunn has won numerous teaching and research awards, including the Wright State University Academy of Medicine’s award for Excellence in Medical Education, and was selected for the inaugural class of the prestigious Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) fellowship program. In 2002 she received the Distinguished Member Award from the Association of Women Surgeons. Dunn serves on several community boards, including the Dayton Clinical Oncology Program and Premier Community Health.

“Dr. Dunn is a national leader in her field who is truly deserving of this award,” said Howard Part, M.D., dean of the WSU Boonshoft School of Medicine. “She has been instrumental in shaping medical care and education policy at both the national and statewide level, as well as here in the Boonshoft School of Medicine. As a result of her tireless leadership, the Boonshoft School of Medicine, its trainees and the communities we serve are much better off.”

As president and CEO of WSP, Dunn has been instrumental in the creation of a new medical office building on the Wright State campus that will provide much needed medical care to the residents of Greene County and beyond. The new $15 million facility will help further WSP’s mission to retain outstanding medical faculty and staff in support of the clinical, research and community service activities of the university’s medical school.

Dunn is also a professor of surgery at Wright State, serving as a faculty member since 1982. A native of Freeport, New York, she received a Bachelor of Science degree from Pennsylvania State University and holds an M.D. from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. She completed her surgery residency and served as chief surgical resident at Einstein-Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. She completed an M.B.A. at Wright State University and is a member of the honorary medical society Alpha Omega Alpha.