MUSC College of Health Professions honors outstanding alumni with 2022 Alumni Awards

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) College of Health Professions (CHP) Alumni Association honors and recognizes alumni for their outstanding contributions to the health professions field. Please join us in congratulating our stellar alumni who were selected for this year’s Alumni Awards!

The Distinguished Alumnus Award is the highest honor bestowed by the College of Health Professions Alumni Association and is presented to two alumni for outstanding, unique and enduring service to the association, the college, the community, and/or the profession over a period of 10 years or more. Our college recognizes an alumnus in the health administration field, as well as an alumnus who is in active clinical practice.

Dan Gentry – Distinguished Alumnus in Health Administration Award

Dan Gentry graduated from MUSC in 1990 with a Master in Health Services Administration. Currently, Gentry currently serves as president and CEO of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA). From 2016 to 2020, he was a clinical professor and MHA program director at the University of Iowa. From 2011 to 2016, Gentry served as professor and director of Health Systems Management & Policy, associate dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs, University of Memphis. Prior to that, he was professor of Health Systems Management and director of the MS-HSM program at Rush University (2007 to 2011). Gentry spent the first 13 years of his academic career, 1994 to 2007, at Saint Louis University. While there, he directed the SLU MHA program (2003 to 2007).

Gentry has taught health care organization, health management and organizational behavior, and leadership. His research has included the financing, organization, and delivery of health services; tobacco, obesity, and HIV policy; the patient experience; and transitioning health care organizations from volume to value.

Gentry earned his BA from the College of Charleston and a Ph.D. in Health Services and Policy Analysis from the University of California, Berkeley.

He is an exemplary leader in the health administration sector and embodies “outstanding, unique and enduring service.” His nominator writes that Gentry has “devoted his career to the advancement of excellence in health administration education and is a pioneer in the field.”

Kimberly “Angel” Bryant – Distinguished Alumnus in Clinical Practice Award

Angel Bryant graduated from MUSC in 2003 with an MS in Occupational Therapy. Since graduation, Bryant has gained extensive experience in interprofessional collaboration through 19 years of hands-on clinical experience in a wide variety of settings including school-based pediatrics, inpatient rehab, acute care hospitals, outpatient clinics and skilled nursing facilities. She currently works full-time as a pediatric school-based occupational therapist and serves as an adjunct instructor in both entry-level and post-professional Doctor of Occupational Therapy programs at the Medical University.

Along with industry proven clinical skills, Bryant spent more than a decade of her career in management and leadership roles, serving as both a regional manager and director of Operations and Clinical Development for Functional Pathways Preferred, a moderately sized therapy staffing company. This experience afforded her with valuable knowledge in documentation management/auditing, consumer relations, clinical operations management, program development, denials management and recovery, compliance management, staff training/education, diversity/equity advocacy, operational consulting, interprofessional training and development, and multi-level interprofessional communication with a wide network of health care professionals, administrators and business stakeholders.

Bryant’s nominator shares that no matter the setting, Bryant leads with high professional standards and has left an impact on a local and national level.

Georgina Dukes – Emerging Leader Award

The Emerging Leader Award is given to an alumnus who has graduated from one of our programs in the past 10 years or less and has shown exemplary leadership and dedication towards the college and/or their organized profession.

Georgina Dukes, a 2015 graduate of the Master in Health Administration program, is the recipient of the 2022 Emerging Leader Award. With more than 13 years of experience in health equity, technology, population health and strategic operations across the health industry, Dukes has the proven ability to use innovation design, implementation and communication tactics to support organizations' impact on the communities they serve, patient outcomes and social determinants of health.
Her nominator writes, “She strives to lead and inspire as an innovator across the nation with addressing social determinants of health for patents and community members.”

Dukes currently serves as the senior director of Social Care Impact at Unite Us. In this role she leads a national effort to increase awareness of social care, challenges systemic causes of poverty and health inequities and strengthens community voices and experiences in partnership with Unite Us. Previously she worked as community engagement manager with Unite Us. Prior to Unite Us, Dukes worked to bridge the gap between hospitals and community health initiatives at Duke Health. Dukes received her undergraduate degree from Clemson University.

In recent years, Dukes has been a White House Administration PREVENTS speaker. In 2021, she served as an expert speaker for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of Population Specific Data Gaps. She has received multiple awards, including the Leaders in Diversity award, the 2020 Women in Business award, a Community Outreach award. She was also nominated for Forbes 30 Under 30 in Healthcare.

Congratulations to all the 2022 College of Health Professions Alumni Awards recipients! We are proud of you and honored to recognize your achievements as MUSC College of Health Professions alumni!