May 26, 2025
Named after the father of the PALTmed Certification Program and the Core Curriculum program, the James Pattee Award for Excellence in Education given by the Foundation for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine recognizes significant contributions to enhancing PALTmed’s educational structure and framework, advancing education specific to PALTC practice, and promoting PALTmed leadership via educational endeavors within the LTC continuum.
This year’s recipient, Daniel Haimowitz, MD, FACP, CMD, has tried to give back by imparting his love of post-acute and long-term care to as many people as possible. ”I've met with high school students, pre-med students, medical students, and fellows,” he says. “I've always felt like it's a way to give back, to show people the passion I have for long-term care and see if I can transmit that to them.”
Based in Pennsylvania, Dr. Haimowitz is a long-time PALTmed member and is active in his state chapter. For PALTmed, he has served as secretary, House of Delegates chair and member, Core Curriculum faculty member, and chair and member of multiple committees. He is also a long-time Caring for the Ages Editorial Advisory Board member and a reviewer for JAMDA. In 2009, he received the Foundation’s William Dodd Founder’s Award for Distinguished Service.
At the state level, he has served as PALTmed - Pennsylvania’s president, worked on numerous committees, and organized regional meetings throughout the state. In 2015, he won the organization’s Duncan MacLean Founder’s Award for Distinguished Service.
Dr. Haimowitz says one of the best benefits of his involvement with PALTmed is the ability to change national policy through House of Delegates resolutions. But, he adds, “I would say the biggest benefit is that my best friends in the world are my PALTmed colleagues. I have more friends around the country than I do in my own backyard. And it's because of this organization.”
Winning the award is flattering, humbling, and validating, according to Dr. Haimowitz. He actually met Dr. Pattee once and calls him a ”rock star” in the field of post-acute and long-term care. If he had the chance to talk with him again, he says, “I'd be interested in hearing what he had to say about the future of geriatrics and medical direction. The other thing I might ask him…is, do you have any tips or tricks you would do differently or recommend that would make someone a better medical director?”
While several prominent PALTmed members—including former President Karl Steinberg, MD, HMDC, CMD, and current President-Elect Leslie Eber, MD, CMD—sang Dr. Haimowitz’s praises during the nomination process, the award recipient mainly sees himself as a “worker bee” who has trouble saying no and gains as much as he gives to everyone involved in post-acute and long-term care.
