Fenesy Awarded EJI Excellence in Medicine Award as the First DMD

Rutgers School of Dental Medicine (RSDM) Vice Dean Kim Fenesy has been awarded the prestigious 2025 EJI Excellence in Medicine Award in the Outstanding Medical Educator category. Established in 1939, the award has never been given to a recipient with a Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) degree in any category. With the award, she also received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the U.S. Congress. 

"This year, it was really clear that Dr. Fenesy just was an incredible role model for others and that she continues to enhance her professionalism and commitment to excellence. It was a unanimous decision," said George F. Heinrich, a member of the selection committee and associate dean for admissions at New Jersey Medical School. "We received a lot of really wonderful nominations, and we look for someone who distinguishes themselves in many different ways beyond their titular responsibility, someone who continues to grow and develop personally."  

Fenesy earned her DMD from RSDM in 1986 and completed her periodontics specialty certificate at Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine. She joined RSDM in 1988 and since 2001 had held numerous administrative dean’s positions in Academic and Student Affairs and currently serves as the school's vice dean. For the past decade, she has been a national leader in interprofessional education (IPE) initiatives.

"I was actually very surprised and really humbled by receiving this award," said Fenesy.

Long before IPE became a buzzword, Fenesy was advocating for collaboration among healthcare professionals in the 1990s. "I was saying we can't be working in silos," she said. As a periodontist, she often saw how medications prescribed by other doctors worsened patients' periodontal conditions due to a lack of collaborative treatment planning. This inspired her to promote teamwork and communication across many healthcare disciplines.

When Rutgers and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) merged, she played a key role in shaping the interprofessional education at the new Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. She received a $2.5 million Health Resources and Services Administration grant to develop an interprofessional curriculum with which she created the SPICE (Special Populations Interprofessional Care Experiences) program involving seven Rutgers schools—including Social Work, Nursing, Public Health, Pharmacy, Health Professions, and New Jersey Medical School—as well as Middlesex Community College. Though the grant is over, SPICE continues to meet with the steering committee with representation from those schools, along with an annual retreat, and RSDM continues to lead the weekly cases in oral medicine and special needs for students across various schools to discuss cases to engage in interprofessional learning. Thanks to Fenesy's efforts, RSDM's curriculum—which integrates IPE throughout all four years—has become a national model. Moreover, Fenesy was selected to serve on the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) national committee to work on a new set of interprofessional educational competencies used not only throughout the nation in all the health profession schools but also globally.

"She has local Rutgers Health-wide and national recognition for her role in interprofessional education," said Vice Chancellor for Interprofessional Programs at Rutgers Health Denise V. Rodgers, who nominated Fenesy for the award. "[She has] really done a lot and advanced our reputation as an institution in the world of IPE."