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In 2010, the Outstanding Contributor Award was named for Leonard W. Sandridge, the former UVA executive vice president and chief operating officer who gave more than four decades of service to the University. This award recognizes outstanding University staff or team members who demonstrate dedication to service through individual efforts, group contributions, and commitment to our larger community. 

Eleven UVA employees recently received this award. Below are the five UVA Health team members who were honored with the 2022 UVA Leonard W. Sandridge Outstanding Contributor Award. Congratulations to all on this well-deserved recognition!

Read excerpts from what nominators had to say about them …

Leigh Gauriloff

“Leigh Gauriloff is a highly respected clinician, colleague and friend whose dedication to our Medical Center, our University, and our community deserves the highest honor, the Leonard W. Sandridge Outstanding Contributor Award. 

“I met Leigh 10 years ago, a nurse on Acute Care Medicine who stood out, she cared deeply for her patients and their families and the team. She was a key player in the development of that team as she went on to be the manager of the unit. I learned a lot by watching her leadership style, always leading with humility and grace. Always willing, ready and able to serve our patients and their families. I love the sparkle in her eyes when she talks about ‘the team,’ always supportive, always proud and quick to recognize others. Leigh went on to be the president of the Professional Nurse Staff Organization, elected by her peers and well-deserved. Soon after, her passion to make a difference for our patients, families, and teams across the health system led her to the Director of Medicine Services where she is currently doing what she does best, as you will see from the people who work with her every day.” 

Tabatha Gilbert

“Tabatha Gilbert is a nurse in the Outpatient Surgery Center at the University of Virginia. Part of her job responsibilities is assisting anesthesiologists as they administer preoperative nerve blocks to patients. One day this past year in the course of her work with the nerve block team, the term ‘LAST’ was mentioned by an anesthesiologist. Tabatha did not know this term. It stands for ‘Local Anesthetic Systemic Toxicity.’ LAST is a low-incidence but life-threatening event that can occur and progress quickly, in a multitude of clinical settings, and in a variety of patient populations whenever local anesthesia is given. It is imperative that clinicians who care for these patients are familiar with the recognition and management of LAST. In the Preoperative area of the Outpatient Surgery Center local anesthesia is routinely given in the form of nerve blocks. Tabatha took on the role of first educating herself abut LAST, learning if her colleagues were familiar with LAST, and then helping to educate people who needed to know about LAST. … This is lifesaving work and Tabatha has done an amazing job from idea to implementation to continuous follow through and spread. This spread of knowledge has the potential to save lives here at UVA and beyond, including internationally. This education has stuck too! …

“Follow-up Qualtrics surveys were completed by participates and a considerable improvement was noted from 68% pre-education to 91.2% three months post-education and 90.6% nine months post education. These results demonstrate that this comprehensive educational plan increases nurses' awareness and knowledge of how to recognize and manage a LAST event. I am so proud of Tabatha and the work she is leading to improve patient safety."

Marissa McKay

“Marissa has been a UVA employee for many years, working as a bedside nurse and then assistant nurse manager prior to transitioning to the Epic team as a nurse informaticist. …

“Marissa combines her knowledge of clinical practice with informatics expertise to improve the quality and efficiency of care provided to patients and families. I can think of many examples of her contributions, but I’ve chosen to focus on her work to decrease catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), streamline documentation for the Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) team, and optimize organ donation referrals.

“Marissa has contributed to efforts to reduce CAUTI at the local (Neuro Criticial/Intermediate Care) and systems level. When the Nerancy Neuro ICU (NNICU) and Neuro Intermediate Unit (NIMU) experienced an increase in CAUTI about 18 months ago, we identified that the key contributors to the increase were management of urinary retention and catheter contamination from stool incontinence in patients with decreased mental status. We learned that it was difficult for clinicians to track information about bladder and bowel management across a patient’s hospital stay, making it difficult to implement best practices in our complex population. As the nurse informaticist working with the CAUTI Coalition, Marissa quickly and efficiently developed ‘accordians’ to facilitate access to this information for the clinical team. These accordians are now used daily in the NNICU/NIMU to make adjustments to the plan of care and are also available to clinicians throughout the health system. We’ve made progress towards CAUTI reduction, and continue to work with Marissa and the Coalition on the development of order sets and other technology-based tools to support evidence-based practice.”

Monte Parsons

“ … I have had the opportunity to observe firsthand just how valuable Monte is not only to our division but the institution at large. Monte has incrementally become a Departmental and institutional resource and treasure. He thrives on new challenges and is always seeking new ways to help those around him. He is not only a ‘Jack of all trades’ but a ‘master of all trades,’ and this in no way give justice to this extraordinary administrative leader. Monte has yet to meet a challenge or hurdle he couldn’t overcome in his many roles supporting the fellowship program, the office of the chief and all faculty for administrative support. He identifies issues and solves them before they become problems. He actively seeks opportunities to advance institutional missions and the wellbeing of all he works with. He does it all with the highest degree of professionalism, a forever eye on stewardship of resources and never taking no for an answer when addressing needs of those he serves. … 

“As his office is adjacent to mine, I quickly got a glimpse as to how much he means to this organization by the volume of personnel from outside the Division seeking advice and information in person and by phone with undoubtedly multiple fold more by email. For example, his influence and unwavering commitment to help others has undoubtedly directly contributed to our institutional success during the past two residency and subspecialty matches since my arrival when we have matched our top candidates and contributed to the UVA Health, UVA School of Medicine, Department of Medicine and Division commitment to increase diversity among fellowship trainees and within the specialty of Allergy-Immunology. He has mentored many peers and graduate medical education leaders throughout the institution on how to overcome challenges from the pandemic and conduct state of the art virtual interviews from both a programmatic and technical perspective. He is a go to program coordinator and valuable resource to so very many in the School of Medicine. Accordingly, he is a past of the Department of Medicine Excellence in Administration and most recently Outstanding Staff Contributor Awards. … 

“Monte has expertly supported no less than 100 medical students, residents, fellows, graduate students and post-docs throughout his tenure at UVA. The tally for patients benefiting directly or indirectly from his efforts is in the thousands and climbing.” 

Teresa Radford

“Teresa Radford helped to pilot the [Population Health] Medicine HOME program beginning in 2017, leading the pilot to become a fully dedicated program to address the very high needs of patients who require comprehensive interdisciplinary, patient-centered care with seamless continuity upon discharge. Her work is to meet patients where they are, identify and educate on individual care goals, improve health equity, work with any system to address needs, deliver inter-professional, non-traditional and inclusive care through teams and the patient/their family/caregivers/community-based assistance support. Most patients she provides care to are among the top 1% of utilizers in inpatient care at UVA Health Medical Center. … 

“The mission of UVA Health is, ‘Transforming health and inspiring hope for all Virginians and beyond.’ If you knew how many patients Teresa has held the hand of, met on the streets to provide care to, sat on a bench with to discuss needs and listened through the desperate tears, you would know that not only is she transforming health and inspiring hope, but she is doing this for patients others would give up on due to the complexities and challenges each one faces. She never gives up and she’s been there through the many successes and also through the painful losses. She’s building bridges within UVA Medical Center’s many systems and throughout communities in the state of Virginia. She provides hope to patients and team members and care in ways no one else does at UVA Health. With every patient she addresses inequities and disparities and always works with the upmost professionalism, integrity, and respect for all.”