Dr. Lee Dockery honored for distinguished achievement

J. Lee Dockery, M.D., was recently honored for his outstanding leadership and lifelong commitment to advancing medical education and research.

Paul Robell, vice president for development and alumni affairs for the University of Florida Foundation, presented a Distinguished Achievement Award to Dockery, a professor emeritus who is a former interim dean of the College of Medicine and vice president for clinical affairs, at UF’s Dec. 15 commencement ceremony.

“We honor Dr. Dockery for his steadfast commitment to his profession, the community and the University of Florida,” Robell said. “Dr. Dockery has proven himself a distinguished scientist and clinician who has dedicated his career to advancing medical education here at the University of Florida and throughout the nation.”

Dockery is a trustee of the Miami-based McKnight Brain Research Foundation, which has contributed $15 million for research in age-related memory loss. In recognition of the grant, the UF brain institute was named for Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight.

Dockery served as a professor of obstetrics and gynecology for 17 years and for nearly a decade as executive associate dean of the College of Medicine prior to his recruitment in 1991 as executive vice president of the American Board of Medical Specialties in Illinois. He retired in January 1998 and returned to Gainesville, where he is professor emeritus in the department of obstetrics and gynecology.

At the invitation of U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, Dockery is serving a three-year term on the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation to help evaluate standards of accreditation applied to foreign medical schools and determine if they compare to those in the United States. He also is a member of the composite committee of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination. He is a past president of the Florida Medical Association, the Southern Medical Association and the Florida Obstetric and Gynecological Society.