The North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) recently awarded Professor Felicity Goodyear-Smith (New Zeland) the prestigious Distinguished Research Mentor Award during their meeting in Quebec, Canada in November 2024.

In addition to her extensive career as a researcher in primary care and family medicine, Felicity has been actively involved in WONCA over many years. She is a former chair of the WONCA Working Party on Research and has edited four books in the WONCA book series. Currently, she serves on the steering group for the WONCA Global Core Values project, which includes editing a book featuring state-of-the-art chapters from all WONCA regions.

Felicity is a true cosmopolitan—linguistically and professionally—and a most generous person.

“Felicity Goodyear-Smith is a remarkable person. Selfless, compassionate, and empathic are some of her personal qualities that spring to mind. These characteristics also make her a remarkable research mentor. A remarkable research mentor is someone whose personal attributes mean that they are a mentor for researchers rather than a researcher that happens to mentor. Felicity’s approach has always been to build up people, to guide them in their research journey, to see them develop, and to celebrate their successes, and she does this in a selfless fashion.”

— From the NAPCRG award citation

WONCA wholeheartedly agrees with this description, and we are grateful to have her in our midst!

Read the full citation here.

Read more on Prof Goodyear-Smith's website (stay for the video of the Tongan song performed at the ceremony)

Article submitted by Anna Stavdal
25 November 2024