Gary D. Plotnick, MD | Professor Emeritus, Department of Medicine | UMB donor for 13 years

“I owe my career to the University of Maryland Medical School, and I want others to have the wonderful opportunities that I have had.”

Dr. Gary Plotnick has worn many hats over his 43 years with the University: assistant dean of Student Affairs, co-director of the Sophomore Pathophysiology and Therapeutics course, director of the Echocardiography Laboratory at both the University of Maryland and the Baltimore VA Medical Center, director of Cardiology Education, director of the Cardiology Fellowship, member of the Institutional Review Board, and co-councilor of University of Maryland Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. Last year, he served as president of the Board of Directors of the University of Maryland Medical Alumni Association. But first and foremost, Dr. Plotnick is an educator par excellence.

Graduating medical school classes have awarded him the Golden Apple Faculty Teaching Award 11 times and the Student Council Award for teaching nine times. In addition, Dr. Plotnick is the University’s only faculty member ever to receive both Clinical and Pre-Clinical Golden Apple Awards. He has been honored as the Founder’s Day Teacher of the Year by the UMB campus and received the Theodore E. Woodward Award for Excellence in Teaching from the American College of Physicians. Dr. Plotnick’s students recognize the value of the education available to them at the University, in part due to his superb skill as a teacher — and it is this that makes him want to give back to the school. “I owe my career to the University of Maryland Medical School,” he says, “and I want others to have the wonderful opportunities that I have had.”