Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 Distinguished Medical Awards, presented by the School of Medicine’s Office of Medical Alumni Affairs. The awards are presented to alumni whose outstanding professional service and achievements bring esteem to the UNC School of Medicine.
Distinguished Medical Alumni Award
Brian H. Mullis, MD ‘99
Dr. Mullis completed his MD in 1999 and Residency in Orthopaedic Surgery in 2005, both at UNC. He also completed a fellowship in Orthopaedic Trauma. He is currently the vice chair for faculty development and is residency program director for the Department of Orthopaedics at Indiana University. He was active duty military for 14 years, including deployments to Afghanistan, where he cared for wounded servicemembers through the Wounded Warrior Project. He has been named a Top North American Traumatologist and has traveled the world teaching various techniques to other surgeons. He is the chair of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association Education Committee and was inducted as a fellow for the International Orthopaedic Trauma Association last year.
Distinguished Faculty Award
Kim L. Isaacs, MD PhD
Dr. Isaacs served as the longstanding co-director of the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) Center. She also formerly served as the program director for the Gastroenterology and Heptology Fellowship. She has been instrumental in bringing UNC’s IBD Center to the forefront of clinical research, serving as director while more than 30 clinical trials were conducted. She has been a dedicated teacher throughout her career and is an active participant in a number of public and community service volunteer roles.
Jane H. Brice, MD ‘94
Dr. Brice is the chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine. She has spent 30 years on faculty at the UNC School of Medicine, including 10 as department chair, and is credited with building UNC into a top emergency center in the country, with thriving residency and fellowship programs and significant research activity among the faculty.
Early Career Achievement
Joshua Berkowitz, MD ‘10
Dr. Berkowitz is an associate professor of orthopaedic surgery at UNC Orthopaedics. He is triple board-certified in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Sports Medicine, and currently serves as the division chief for Nonoperative Sport and Musculoskeletal Medicine. He also serves as the head UNC team physician for several sports, an honor that his nominators noted is extremely rare for someone his age.
Avik Chatterjee, MD ‘08
Dr. Chatterjee is assistant professor at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and is an adjunct faculty member at Harvard Medical School. His nominators highlighted his service to Boston’s most vulnerable citizens, as evidenced by his leadership of the Southampton Street Shelter Clinic and other addiction medicine services he provides through the Boston Health Care for the Homeless (BHCHP) Program. His research focuses on opioid use disorder and overdose prevention, and he’s been published in prestigious journals and teaches social medicine and social determinants of health at Harvard Medical School.