The Alumni Association is pleased to announce that Craig Elder, MD.,'2016 was selected to receive the Alumni Association's 4th Year Student Award. Craig was honored at the 2016 Dean's Reception on Wednesday, May 18 with a plaque and a $1,000 gift. “Craig is one of the very top students I have had the pleasure of working with in my 10 years at the "Aside from research and service through B2B, Craig has continued to serve in many different "Craig had a tremendous performance on his clinical clerkship; with great clinical judgment he tookProfessors and classmates had this to say about Craig:
University of Utah. During this period, Craig expertly served as co-president of the University’s
Bench to Bedside (B2B) medical technology innovation and entrepreneurship program. His
outstanding leadership skills and ability to get things done led to the tremendous growth in the
participation and the quality of the program. His efforts saw an increase in team participation from
18 teams the previous year to 47 teams under his leadership. His efforts also brought national
recognition to the program. In fact, just weeks after the culminating annual event, I received a call
from Mike Enzi, the senior United States Senator of the State of Wyoming, asking if he could pay to
have Craig and the B2B co-president fly out to his State sponsored economic development program
“Garage to the Assembly Line” so they could learn from our best practices. Craig was so impressive
in his leadership role that I asked him to remain on as co-president for an additional year while
grooming another team to take the reins..” John Langell, MD., Executive Director of the Center for Medical Innovation
areas. Since 2007, he has participated (multiple times a year) with the Foundation for Children
and Youth with Diabetes. His roles have included youth counselor, program director, and medical
staff. He even established a clerkship with the foundation to engage more of his classmates. Craig
further participated in the Utah Rural Outreach Program as an ambassador to rural communities
in Utah. I was fortunate to join Craig on one of his trips, where he taught high school students
cardiac anatomy – but more importantly shared his “you can do it” attitude with them about
medicine." Patrick Loftus, MD - Class of 2016
exceptional care of his patients. His two clinical research projects with our division both went on
to presentation at national meetings and are published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery. The
first paper reviewed intestinal malrotation in congenital heart disease patients, which he
presented as first author at the Pacific Association of Pediatric Surgery in Vancouver 2014; and
the second documented pain management techniques in pectus excavatum surgical repair and
was presented at the American Pediatric Surgery Association in Florida 2015.
Craig is a talented, sincere, smart, hardworking student who has accomplished a lot… and he’s just
getting started. I enthusiastically recommend his nomination for this well-deserved award." Rebecka L. Meyers, Professor of Pediatric Surgery, Primary Chldren's Hospital.