Dr. Paul Wax, Professor of Emergency Medicine, has received the Matthew J. Ellenhorn Award from the American College of Medical Toxicology (ACMT) in honor of lifetime contributions to the specialty of toxicology.

The annual award from ACMT, the largest physician toxicology group in the world, honors individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the field in teaching, clinical practice, research, and/or service. Dr. Wax is the 23nd recipient of the award.

A UT Southwestern faculty member since 2006, Dr. Wax followed his Presidency of the College by serving as the Executive Director of ACMT in 2008. In that role, he led the College through significant growth, including helping it obtain the National Grant for Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units, the largest grant the ACMT had ever obtained. He co-created the Toxicology Investigators Consortium (ToxIC) Registry, a patient registry within the ACMT to broaden research in the field. He founded the Chemical Agents of Opportunity Course, which has trained over 15,000 people in chemical terrorism education in the last 15 years. He developed the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Subject Matter Expert network to provide expert consultation for the Department of Homeland Security’s Chemical Terrorism Risk Assessment.

Dr. Wax also led the charge to start the College’s Journal of Medical Toxicology and has been instrumental in ACMT’s expanded relationship with the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the growth of toxicology within addiction medicine and forensic medicine.

The Awards Committee could not have chosen a more deserving Ellenhorn recipient than Paul Wax, said Dr. Kurt Kleinschmidt, Chief of the Emergency Medicine Department’s Division of Medical Toxicology. Paul has done more for the advancement of medical toxicology than many other specialty leaders combined. He brings an immense amount of expertise and knowledge to our Division and we are honored to work with and learn from him. This is a remarkable achievement not only for Paul but also for our Division, our Department, and UT Southwestern.

In April, Dr. Wax received the award at the ACMT’s 2019 Annual Scientific Meeting in San Francisco, where he presented the Ellenhorn Address.