Vicki Hamm will be honored with the J.G. Elliott Award at UNMC’s winter commencement Friday, Dec. 20, for her decades of service to her fellow Nebraskans, notably in the areas of health care, educational opportunity and community health.
For nearly 50 years, Hamm served as the expert on graduate medical education at UNMC. She was a resource and friend to generations of house officers who made UNMC their home for residency and fellowship training.
These physicians went on to touch the lives of their fellow Nebraskans and others, enriching the state and the world beyond.
Hamm was described as “the lifeblood of graduate medical education” at UNMC. She mentored, guided and steered the careers of countless house officers. She was the go-to person for more than 560 of them at UNMC at a time, managing all internal reviews for the training programs as well as budget, orientation, International Medical Graduates sponsorship, National Resident Matching Program and Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education institutional and program reviews.
The late Robert Wigton, MD, once said that when he became assistant dean for graduate medical education in 1976, his first action was to hire Hamm. It proved to be his best decision, he later said.
Hamm is a native of Cook, Nebraska. She joined UNMC in 1975 after graduating from the Lincoln School of Commerce. She was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and earned UNMC’s Gold U award, the highest honor for UNMC employees. She authored “The Graduate Medical Education Committee Handbook,” published in 2008.
The J.G. Elliott Award is given annually to an individual who has made significant contributions to medicine and health programs for the state of Nebraska. It is awarded in memory of Jack Elliott, who served on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents for 20 years until his death in 1974.