Congratulations to B. Zane Horowitz, MD, FACMT. Dr. Horowitz has had a long and distinguished career with achievements in research, teaching, and clinical practice. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. He has served as the medical director of the Oregon-Alaska-Guam Poison Center since 1997.

Dr. Horowitz will present the 2023 Career Achievement Address at the 2023 ACMT Annual Scientific Meeting on April 1, 2023. Read his full nomination letter below.

Nomination Committee:

It is our great pleasure to write this letter to nomimate B. Zane Horowitz, MD, for the ACMT Career Achievement Award.  We have previously nominated Zane for the Matthew Ellenhorn Award and feel we needed to nominate him again for the award now known as the ACMT Career Achievement Award this year to highlight his extraordinary contributions to our field.  We will detail his contributions in research, teaching, clinical practice, and service to the specialty below. 

Research:  Dr. Horowitz has been a prolific author of influential manuscripts in the field of medical toxicology. He has authored 92 manuscripts and his scholarly works have been cited more than 2500 times. Sixteen of his manuscripts have been cited >50 times, 5 have been cited >100 times, and 2 have been cited > 200 times. His h-index is 26, putting him well into the top <1% of all physicians in emergency medicine, and is consistent with previous winners of this Award. His scholarly work is widely recognized and he has established himself as an international expert on several topics, particularly botulinum toxin, clinical botulism, and mushroom poisoning. Dr. Horowitz’s works include early cases of cocaine-associated myocardial ischemia (N Engl J Med), wound botulism associated with black tar heroin (JAMA), and Toxic Shock Syndrome.  He reported early cases of synthetic cannabinoid-induced renal failure from XLR-11 and wrote seminal works on methamphetamine, body stuffers, and high concentration hydrogen peroxide ingestions. He continues to be a prolific contributor to the medical toxicology literature with recent influential articles on suicidal ingestions in adolescent and preadolescent children as well as nitrous oxide, sodium nitrite, and abrin.

Dr. Horowitz has published 15 chapters in textbooks, including chapters in Poisoning and Drug Overdose (Olson KR, ed); Principles of Critical Care (Hall JB, ed); Ellenhorn’s Medical Toxicology (Dart RC, ed); Essentials of Emergency Medicine (Aghababian RV, ed); Emergency Medicine: a comprehensive study guide (Tintinalli J, ed); and Critical Care Toxicology (Brent J, ed).

Teaching:  Dr. Horowitz is a world-class and tireless educator with 4 decades of experience teaching a wide variety of learners at their level of understanding. He regularly teaches students in medicine, pharmacy, and nursing and served as the regional coordinator and an instructor for the Advanced Hazmat Life Support (AHLS) course.  He is always willing to give grand rounds on a variety of toxicology topics to physicians at numerous regional hospital systems. Zane regularly participates in regional and national case conferences where he contributes pragmatic approaches to clinical dilemmas. He has received teaching awards from the Emergency Medicine residencies at both the University of California – Davis (1993) and the Oregon Health and Science University (2008).  

Zane has been an effective and encouraging mentor for all of the signatories of this letter as well as many other physicians, pharmacists, and nurses, who have gone on to become leaders in the field of medical toxicology.  

Clinical Practice:  Dr. Horowitz is an outstanding clinician.  We have witnessed Zane on both phone and bedside consultations, and his level of care is nothing short of outstanding.  His knowledge of the literature is near encyclopedic. He is continuously praised by trainees for his evidence-based practice and has been awarded “outstanding clinical faculty” by the EM residency at UC Davis and the “faculty excellence” award by the OHSU EM residency. Zane is internationally recognized in the world of medical toxicology for his rational approach to patient care and is looked to in national journal clubs and case conferences as an evidence-based voice of reason. 

Dr. Horowitz was originally board certified in medical toxicology by the American Board of Medical Toxicology in 1991 and has recertified in Medical Toxicology under the American Board of Emergency Medicine in 2000, 2010, and 2020. In the 30 years since his certification, Dr. Horowitz has been practicing bedside medical toxicology continously.  He has provided thousands of bedside consultations as a medical toxicologist to children and adults at the Oregon Health and Science University and Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.  He is seen as a clinical expert in the field and is frequently consulted on the most complicated cases in the region. Dr. Horowitz has provided thousands of telephone consultations to physicians in Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Utah, Guam, and the Northern Marianas Islands.  

Service:  Dr. Horowitz has served the field of medical toxicology in several ways.  He served as the medical director for the Oregon/Alaska/Guam Poison Center for 21 years. Zane played a critical role in establishing Poison Center coverage for both Alaska and Guam. During this time, he also served as the medical director for the Utah Poison Center from 2012-2018.  Zane received the “Course Director of the Year” award in 2002 while serving as the regional coordinator for the Advanced Hazmat Life Support (AHLS) courses. Zane established a biweekly toxicology case conference that has been regularly attended by medical toxicologists and Poison Center staff from Oregon, Washington, Alberta, Utah, Arkansas, New York, and Pennsylvania for over 10 years.  Zane also serves as the Associate Editor for the journal Toxicology Communications. 

Now that we have reviewed some of Zane’s impressive collection of accomplishments, please allow us to make a personal note.  Zane is kind, fair, and an exceptional leader.  He is completely unassuming and manages to make learners at all levels and from vastly different backgrounds feel like valued colleagues. We can think of no other medical toxicologist that we would most like to emulate and no other physician who is more deserving of the ACMT Career Achievement Award than Zane.

Sincerely,