April 21, 2003

SMU Honors Parkland Hospital's Dr. Ron Anderson With Ethics Award

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DALLAS (SMU) -- Dr. Ron Anderson, president and chief executive officer of Parkland Health & Hospital System, will receive the 2003 J. Erik Jonsson Ethics Award from SMU's Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility.

Anderson will receive his award at noon, Tuesday, April 22, in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center, 3140 Dyer Street.

The award honors the memory of one of Dallas' most influential mayors by recognizing a local citizen whose self-sacrifice and work on behalf of the community embody the democratic principles of public virtue. Past recipients of the award are Curtis W. Meadows Jr., former president of the Meadows Foundation; Charles C. Sprague; president emeritus of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas; the late Stanley Marcus, chairman emeritus of Neiman Marcus; Jack Lowe Jr., CEO and chairman of the board of TDIndustries Ltd.; and William T. Solomon, chairman and CEO of Austin Industries Inc.

"Ron Anderson has set the standard for patient-centered, patient-valued healthcare. He has always chosen the high moral road when he might have easily and defensively chosen a safer road," said Richard Mason, director of the Maguire Center.

Anderson became chief executive officer of Parkland in 1982. He previously served as Parkland's medical director for ambulatory care and emergency services and has remained on the faculty of the UT Southwestern Medical Center as professor of internal medicine.

While serving on the executive committee of the State Task Force on Indigent Health Care, Anderson helped pass landmark legislation on indigent health care. He was appointed co-chair of the Attorney General's task force to study not-for-profit hospitals and unsponsored charity care in 1988 and served as a member of Governor Richards' Health Policy Task Force. Anderson is past chairman of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, National Association of Public Hospitals, National Public Health and Hospital Institute and Texas Hospital Association. He was also a member of the Kaiser Commission on the Future of Medicaid and was elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1997.

Among his awards are the John P. McGovern Award for Humanitarian Medicine and Lectureship from the Association of Academic Health Centers and the American Public Health Association Award for Excellence in recognition of exceptionally meritorious contributions to the improvement of the health of the people.

A $2.5 million gift to SMU from Dallas oilman Cary M. Maguire established the center in 1995. Since its inception, this universitywide center has hosted conferences on business ethics, managed care, media ethics, philanthropy and urban politics. The Maguire Center serves as a forum for the exploration of the common good and brings together with resources and opportunities for ethical reflection those who confront issues of ethical importance.