2023 API Lifetime Achievement Award

API President, Dr. Ji Yeon Kim, presenting the 2023 API Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. George Birdsong of Emory University, Winship Cancer Institute. Dr. George Birdsong stated that the award was the highlight of his career! Congratulations Dr. Birdsong!

Dr. George Birdsong has led the transformative work in the past decade of moving cancer pathology reports from narrative records written individualistically to structured synoptic reports that can be shared and aggregated for cancer registries, clinical trials, epidemiologic research, among other uses, within the U.S. and globally. Dr. Birdsong also played a pivotal role in bringing DICOM standards to pathology for whole slide imaging. He is the former chair of the Pathology Electronic Reporting (PERT) Committee and served as the CAP liaison to the International Collaboration on Cancer Reporting (ICCR). He has been involved also with SNOMED International, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and has worked in numerous advisory groups and committees over the years. Dr. Birdsong is also a recipient of the CAP 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award. We are honored to recognize him with the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of the Association for Pathology Informatics for his invaluable contributions to the field of pathology informatics.