Robert Centor, M.D., associate dean of the UAB School of Medicine, Huntsville Regional Medical Campus, and professor of internal medicine, has won the Southern Leader and Mentor in General Internal Medicine award from the Southern Society of General Internal Medicine for 2011. The award recognizes those who contribute meaningfully to the society and whose work advances the practice of internal medicine
Centor was cited for excellence in teaching and scholarship development and for his skills as a clinician and researcher. In the 1980s, he began studying the diagnosis and treatment of streptococcal pharyngitis, leading to his description of a four-item prediction rule, based on clinical findings, to guide the diagnosis of streptococcal (versus viral) pharyngitis. The findings of this research have been widely implemented in practice, and his prediction rule now is commonly referred to as the “Centor score.”