Nancy Stead Atwood, M.D., has been recognized for Outstanding Professional Achievement by her alma mater, the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C.
The award, presented at a recent ceremony at the school, recognizes Stead for her "remarkable career as a medical doctor and patient advocate."
After graduating from NCS in 1962, Stead earned her medical degree from Duke University in Durham, N.C. She served as house officer in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and completed a fellowship in hematology at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
After serving on the medical faculty at Duke for six years and at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta for eight years, she established an oncology, hematology and internal medicine practice in Gainesville in 1991. Her practice later merged with the oncology practice of James Butts, M.D., at the Northeast Georgia Diagnostic Clinic in 2000.
Since retiring, Stead has become a patient advocate and ethics watchdog in the profession of health care, educating consumers through her website steadfasthealthcare.com.
“My hope is to educate the healthcare consumer of their rights and the limitation of rights in the current system, but more importantly become aware of the pitfalls and dangers of this current system and enact change,” she said. “It will take community awareness and public demand to see measures enacted to protect the healthcare consumer and provide them a voice when proper protocol is not followed.”
Stead and her husband, Alan Atwood, M.D., a retired general surgeon, live in Gainesville.
