Established in 2006, the College of American Pathologists Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes and honors a CAP member who has made a broad and positive impact on the pathology profession through contributions to one or more areas of the organization over an extended period of time.
The College of American Pathologists presents George G. Birdsong, MD, FCAP, with a CAP Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions and service within the Council on Scientific Affairs over the years.
Dr. Birdsong has greatly impacted the CAP and the everyday lives of pathologists. His leadership as the former chair of the Pathology Electronic Reporting (PERT) Committee paved the way for pathologists to report on their cancer cases within their laboratory information systems. He has also greatly improved and grown the use and value of CAP electronic Cancer Checklists (eCC) by pathologists through his validation and review work with the Cancer Protocol Review Panel. He has been involved in a multitude of other CAP committees over the years. These include the Informatics (formerly DIHIT) Committee, the Clinical Informatics Steering Committee, and the Cytopathology Committee. In addition, Dr. Birdsong has served as a liaison and CAP spokesperson of note to the International Collaboration on Cancer Reporting (ICCR), the IHE-iPaLM group working with SNOMED International, and the in-house PHC Pre-analytics for Precision Medicine Project Team. He is also a member of the House of Delegates, serves on the gynecologic Cancer Protocols review panel, and has worked on CAP advisory groups, ad-hoc committees, and internal boards throughout the years.
Dr. Birdsong has a long record of service to the profession of pathology through involvement in activities outside the CAP. He contributed his considerable experience to the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and played a significant part in crafting scientific and technical advice and guidance to the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Birdsong also participated as a work group member of the Gynecologic Cytopathology Quality Consensus Conference to develop an inventory of current practices in gynecologic cytology laboratories in order to standardize procedures for quality improvement.
Dr. Birdsong is a professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and director of anatomic pathology at Grady Health System, both in Atlanta.