2024 AAO-HNS/F Service and Leadership Awards

Distinguished Award for Humanitarian Service

Daniel D. Megler, MD
Lakeshore Ear, Nose & Throat CenterThis year’s AAO-HNSF Distinguished Award for Humanitarian Service goes to Daniel D. Megler, MD. He is president of Lakeshore Ear, Nose & Throat Center and a clinical assistant professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Surgical Specialties. After completing his initial medical training at the University of Belgrade in Serbia, Dr. Megler relocated to the United States and continued his medical training at Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Dr. Megler has served as board chair for The Holley Institute, a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 to provide life-enhancing programs for the deaf and those affected by hearing and vision loss. The institute provides screening for all newborns at Ascension St. John Hospital in Detroit for hearing loss, as well as community education and outreach programs. Dr. Megler’s fundraising efforts have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of this organization.

Dr. Megler’s humanitarian efforts have been particularly notable in support of deaf and hard of hearing patients in his home country of Serbia. Serbia did not have newborn infant screening programs, so Dr. Megler organized meetings with the Serbian vice secretary of health, hospital presidents, the princess of Serbia, and the U.S. ambassador to Serbia to institute a new, mandatory infant screening law. He also directed American speech-language pathologists to help implement this program.

Furthermore, Dr. Megler has personally financed trips for Serbian children, families, teachers, and faculty to come to The Holley Institute’s Carls Family Village in Brooklyn, Michigan, a residential facility that provides education, training, and mentoring for deaf, deaf-blind, and hard-of-hearing children and their families. He has supplied more than 200 surgical intensive care unit beds, wheelchairs, and uniforms to various hospitals in Serbia; helped raise over $200,000 for new surgical tables and audiology equipment; and trained Serbian medical staff and otolaryngologists.

Holt Leadership Award for Residents and Fellows-in-Training

Pauline Huynh, MD
Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical CenterThis year’s recipient of the AAO-HNS Holt Leadership Award for Residents and Fellows-in-Training is Pauline Huynh, MD, who is completing her residency training at Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center. She received her bachelor’s degree in health and humanity at University of Southern California and her medical degree at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She plans to pursue fellowship training in laryngology.

In addition to serving in leadership positions within her state and county medical associations, Dr. Huynh is the Section for Residents and Fellows-in-Training (SRF) representative on the AAO-HNS Board of Governors as well as chair of the American Medical Association (AMA) Resident & Fellow Section. In this role she directs and guides national priorities for the organization’s 70,000 trainee members. Her priorities this past year have focused on trainee protections, and she has engaged with state and national leaders in medical education on the impact of residency program closures.

As a fourth-year medical student during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Huynh interned with MedChi, The Maryland State Medical Society. During that time, her work on a COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan directly led to a request to the Maryland Department of Health calling for vaccines to be distributed at physician private practices, which was approved by the governor of Maryland in March 2021.

Also in 2021, while serving as the AMA Medical Student Section (MSS) delegate, she engaged in a national advocacy effort within the AMA to address the issue of racism in medicine. Dr. Huynh’s work spurred national conversations on the improper use of race as a proxy in clinical care algorithms. Her other advocacy efforts have highlighted concerns regarding the presence of pharmaceutical advertising in electronic health records, firearm safety, and mandated reporting laws.

Jerome C. Goldstein, MD Public Service Award

Matthew L. Bush, MD, PhD, MBA
University of Kentucky in LexingtonMatthew L. Bush, MD, PhD, MBA, is recognized with the 2024 AAO-HNSF Jerome C. Goldstein, MD Public Service Award. He is a professor and chair of the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. He holds the University of Kentucky College of Medicine Endowed Chair in Rural Health Policy.

Dr. Bush’s research and clinical efforts are focused on providing timely access to hearing healthcare for children and adults. He served as the principal investigator of several National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded community-based trials to advance hearing healthcare and utilization among underserved populations. A native West Virginian, he is dedicated to caring for the neurotological needs of patients throughout Appalachia.

A significant portion of Dr. Bush’s research specifically addresses healthcare disparities in a way that directly improves screenings for newborn hearing and chronic otitis media. He has been awarded multiple NIH Research Project Grants (R01) and has published several peer-reviewed papers.

Dr. Bush is a strong advocate for trainees and devotes his time to educating medical students about research and otolaryngology-head and neck surgery conditions and treatments. He earned his medical degree from Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, West Virginia, and completed his otolaryngology residency at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He completed a post-doctoral research fellowship and his otology, neurotology and cranial base surgery fellowship at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He also earned an MBA and a PhD in clinical and translational science from the University of Kentucky. 

Nikhil J. Bhatt, MD International Humanitarian Award

Mahmood Bhutta, DPhil, FRCS
Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, United KingdomMahmood Bhutta, DPhil, FRCS, has been named the recipient of the 2024 AAO-HNSF Nikhil J. Bhatt, MD International Humanitarian Award. Dr. Bhutta is a professor of Sustainable Healthcare and the Inaugural Chair of ENT Surgery at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, United Kingdom. He provides care to patients in low-resource areas who are affected by chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM).

Dr. Bhutta was the lead otolaryngologist for a collection of seven Cochrane Reviews on the medical treatment for CSOM. A Cochrane Review is a systematic review that attempts to identify, appraise, and synthesize all the empirical evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question. He also co-led a revision of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) primary ear and hearing care manual and introduced the Objective Structured Clinical Examination into the training of WHO healthcare workers.

Additionally, he trained the first otolaryngology surgeons in Cambodia at the Children’s Surgical Centre in Phnom Penh. The team he trained was made up of all women—a fact celebrated throughout the country as well as internationally as an example of women's empowerment. That team has now trained other emerging otolaryngology surgeons. Dr. Bhutta is currently partnering with local clinical teams to research and implement models of community-based care for patients with CSOM in rural communities of Zambia and Malawi, as well as in the Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh.

The AAO-HNSF Nikhil J. Bhatt, MD International Humanitarian Award honors a non-U.S. otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeon who has selflessly treated people for whom access to care would have been financially or physically prohibitive.

Nikhil J. Bhatt, MD International Public Service Award

Hussain Abdulrahman Al Rand, MD
Ministry of Health and Prevention for the United Arab EmiratesThis year’s recipient of the AAO-HNSF Nikhil J. Bhatt, MD International Public Service Award is Hussain Abdulrahman Al Rand, MD. Currently, he is assistant undersecretary of Public Health Sector at the Ministry of Health and Prevention for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Formerly, he was director of Medical Affairs and head of the ENT department at Dubai Hospital, Dubai Health Authority (DHA). Prior to that, he managed various positions in the DHA as an otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeon and consultant.

Colleagues refer to Dr. Al Rand as, “An outstanding leader and innovative man of service.” He was instrumental in launching the Help Me Hear Initiative designed to assist UAE children with hearing loss using cochlear implants at a time when the region had few cochlear implant centers. He also established the first hearing and balance clinic in the UAE, and his achievements have advanced otolaryngology throughout the Gulf region, a move that has attracted numerous international patients.

Dr. Al Rand organizes and executes annual temporal bone dissection courses and endoscopic sinus surgery courses with cadaver dissection. Due to the scarcity of similar opportunities in the area, these courses help otolaryngologists throughout the Middle East advance their careers as well as the care they provide to patients.

In addition, Dr. Al Rand has worked with the World Health Organization on behalf of the UAE to promote healthy lifestyles and, specifically, combat childhood obesity. He was selected by the WHO as a special adviser to the organization’s Global Coordinating Mechanism on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases.

The AAO-HNSF Nikhil J. Bhatt, MD International Public Service Award honors a non-U.S. otolaryngologist–head and neck surgeon whose achievements have advanced the specialty.