The below is a message from Bradley Dixon, MD, Chief of Medicine, Iowa City VA Health Care System (ICVA).
It is with enormous pleasure that I announce that the Awards Committee has selected Dr. Peter J. Kaboli, staff physician at the ICVA, Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Carver College of Medicine and Acting Executive Director of the VA Office of Rural Health as the recipient of the third DiBona Academics in Service of ICVA Veterans Award. Dr. Kaboli truly embodies the tenets upon which this award was predicated, a physician primarily working at the ICVA holding a joint academic appointment with the University of Iowa and demonstrating a sustained, outstanding commitment to clinical care, education, and research in the service of veterans at the ICVA.
Dr. Kaboli received his undergraduate BS (Biology) and MD degrees from the University of Iowa. He then moved to Utah and despite the rigors of skiing he managed to complete a residency in Internal Medicine at the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, and also served as their Chief Resident in Medicine for a year. He returned to bike on roads passing through the cornfields of Iowa while completing Fellowships in General Internal Medicine and the VA Quality Scholars Program as well as an MS in Epidemiology. He joined the University of Iowa as an Assistant Professor of Medicine in 2001 and rapidly advanced to become Professor of Medicine in 2012. During his career he has served in many administrative roles including the Assistant UI Residency Program Director, the Chair of the National Veterans Field Advisory Committee for Hospitalists, the Director of the Veterans Rural Health Resource Center-Central Region, the ICVA Chief of Medicine and Vice Chair for VA Affairs in the UI Department of Internal Medicine, and most recently the Acting Executive Director of the VA Office of Rural Health. Since 2001 he has been an Associate Investigator in the Center for Comprehensive Access & Delivery Research & Evaluation (CADRE), and has been an active member of the VA Quality Scholars Program.
Dr. Kaboli’s academic interest is in health services research and health care delivery. He has published extensively in high quality journals and lectured widely making important contributions to health care delivery in diverse fields such as management of hypertension, venous thromboembolism, pharmacy-directed services, adverse drug events, access to care, rural health, telehealth services and strategies to improve inpatient care. Dr. Kaboli’s research has been well funded by VA HSR&D, VA Office of Rural Health, and NIH. He has over 150 peer-reviewed publications, 13 editorials, and many other publications including book chapters, reports and non-peer reviewed articles. He has won numerous awards including the best research presentation from VA HSR&D Service, the Society of General Internal Medicine and the 2017 Wiederholt Prize for Best Published Paper Award for Economic and Administrative Sciences from the American Public Health Association.
He is widely sought after both nationally and internationally as a lecturer and visiting professor in many topics in health sciences research and health care delivery. He is generous with his time providing service to many University, VA, local, regional and national committees, grant review panels, and as a journal manuscript reviewer. Perhaps most impressive and well-known to those who work with Dr. Kaboli is his energy and infectious enthusiasm to recruit, mentor, and support trainees and faculty members in health sciences research. He has mentored and supervised research of over 15 faculty and trainees and served on the thesis committees of several others, many who have stayed on in academic medicine. Finally, Dr. Kaboli is an outstanding and compassionate clinician and educator who routinely garners high marks for his clinical acumen from other staff and his excellence in teaching from trainees.
In short, Dr. Kaboli is an outstanding and exemplary awardee for the third DiBona award. His career truly embodies the high standards exemplified by Dr. DiBona and continues the high bar set for this award.
We wish to also recognize the work of the Awards Committee and the nominations of other very distinguished and deserving candidates and we look forward to recognizing the many contributions of these other deserving VA-based academic physicians with the DiBona Award in the future.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Kaboli on this well-deserved award!
Dr. Kaboli delivered the annual DiBona Award Lecture at Internal Medicine Grand Rounds on June 22. His lecture is entitled: “Rural Health: What it Means for VHA, UIHC, and the Nation.” Watch the recording of his presentation.
