Ken Walker had been awarded by the Emory University Alumni Association

Ken Walker had been awarded by the Emory University Alumni Association on on March 1, 2018. Emory Medal – Emory’s highest alumni award. “We are extremely pleased to recognize these four distinguished Emory alumni,” says Sarah Cook 95C, senior associate vice president for alumni affairs. “They have demonstrated a selfless commitment to saving lives and preventing disease both in the United States and abroad. Their passion and their dedication to medicine and nursing are a true inspiration to all Emory alumni and to the global community.”

Ken Walker, MD, professor of medicine and neurology in Emory University School of Medicine, and professor of global health in Rollins School of Public Health, has dedicated his 60-year career to clinical care of patients at Grady Memorial Hospital and to global health outreach in the Republic of Georgia.

Walker earned his associate’s degree from Oxford, graduated from Emory College, and then earned his MD from Emory School of Medicine. After medical school, Walker completed his post-graduate training at Grady, where he has served as assistant chief of medicine for the Grady Health System.

In addition to his skills as a physician, Walker has been extremely dedicated to the education and training of medical students and has directed Emory’s internal medicine residency program, junior medicine clerkship, and sophomore clinical methods course. He has personally trained more internal medicine residents than any other physician at Emory. Through his strong mentorship skills, numerous medical residents have learned valuable lessons about dedication, professionalism and patient-centered medical care.

Walker has written or edited a number of books on physical diagnosis, organizing medical data and evaluating the surgical patient. A particular interest has been the application of computers to medicine: he was instrumental in establishing a pioneering electronic medical record at Grady Hospital and has been a member, chair and senior consultant to the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine since 1992.

For more than 25 years, as executive director of Partners for International Development, Walker has led the Atlanta-Tbilisi Partnership, a collaboration between educational and health care institutions in the Republic of Georgia and Atlanta.

The partnership’s many projects have been instrumental in improving the quality of health care in the Republic of Georgia. These include establishing the National Information Learning Center; participating in laws and regulations reforming the healthcare sector; bringing 50 Georgian medical school graduates to Emory for three years of training in internal medicine and other specialties; mentoring 15 Georgians who received their MPH at Emory; and establishing the Caucasus School of Business.

Walker’s leadership also has resulted in the development of health care management education for mid-level hospital administrators in the Republic of Georgia; establishing a modern emergency room; training practicing nurses and planning a nursing school; setting up a Women's Wellness Center; working with Georgian scientists and physicians in AIDS and tuberculosis; and assessing the country’s libraries. Walker is principal investigator of a grant establishing emergency medicine as a specialty in Georgia, and of a grant to improve the nursing profession.

In 2005, Walker was named an honorary citizen of Georgia. In 2016, the Georgia Hospital Association awarded him the Georgia Hospital Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award.