Since his arrival at HUP in 1990, Jon Morris has made student and housestaff education a focus of his activity. While also maintaining an active practice of general surgery and authoring over 100 scholarly articles in the surgical literature his performance as a teacher has resulted in his compiling a list of awards and prizes that is probably unequaled.
For the Department of Surgery, Jon has served in many educational roles including Director of Medical Student Education (1993-1998), Director of Housestaff Education (1999-2001, 2003-present) and Program Director of the Surgery Residency. For the School of Medicine, he was Associate Dean for Clinical Education (1997-2001) and since 2004 has been Associate Dean for Student Affairs.
In the Department of Surgery Jon has received the faculty teaching award multiple times. At the School of Medicine, he has received the medical students' award for teaching, the Penn Pearls award for outstanding clinical teaching, the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for teaching, Robert D. Dripps Award and a special Dean's Award in recognition of outstanding service to the medical students. In addition, he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society as a faculty member.
Nationally Jon is certainly one of the most recognized surgical educators. He was President of the Association of Program Directors in Surgery from 2014-2015. He is a member of the American Surgical Association. In 2014 he became the inaugural Ernest F. Rosato — William Mull Measey Professor of Surgical Education. In 2018 Jon stepped down as Program Director of the Penn General Surgery Residency, a position he had held for 14 years, but remains the Department's Vice Chair of Education, overseeing the Division of Surgical Education. In January 2018 Jon was appointed as the first Director of the Center for Student Life at the Perelman School of Medicine.