The Infection Prevention Team at the Detroit Medical Center, under the direction of Teena Chopra, M.D., M.P.H., professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, has received the DMC Extra Mile Award.

The award recognizes those who have exceeded expectations in actions with coworkers and patients.

“Under the mentorship of Dr. Teena Chopra, this team has shown true resilience and passion in their work. They are one of the strongest teams at DMC who are always striving to bring evidence-based guidelines to prevent health care-associated infections at DMC.  We are grateful for their stellar performance and for going above and beyond to help provide the best care for our patients as well as our DMC staff,” Roy Elrod, M.D., and Michael White, M.D., wrote in an email announcing the award on behalf of the Detroit Receiving Hospital Medical Staff Operations Committee.

The doctors noted they wanted to acknowledge “the incredible job over the past two years that the Infectious Disease Department has done.”

“I am truly honored to lead the DMC Infection Prevention Team and work with the nation’s best infection preventionists. The pandemic has brought major challenges to all health care workers, but the infection prevention teams have been on call 24/7,” said Dr. Chopra, the corporate medical director of Hospital Epidemiology, Infection Prevention and Antibiotic Stewardship at the Detroit Medical Center and Wayne State University, as well as a founding member of the WSU Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases. “They have championed the mammoth task of preventing COVID-19 outbreaks in the hospitals. I applaud them for their resilience and dedication.”