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- 2025 CAP Distinguished Service Award
This award, established in 1965 (and amended in 2006), recognizes episodic, sustained, or cumulative contributions to the practice of pathology—and to the CAP—that are sufficiently notable and extraordinary to set the nominee apart from peers. Nominees must be CAP members.
James S. Lewis Jr., MD, FCAP
The College of American Pathologists honors James S. Lewis Jr., MD, FCAP, with the 2025 CAP Distinguished Service Award for his outstanding leadership and contributions to advancing the practice of pathology and ensuring safe patient care.
Dr. Lewis served as co-chair of the “Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Testing in Head and Neck Carcinomas Guideline,” published in 2018. In this role, he led a multidisciplinary panel of experts through a systematic review of more than 2,800 titles to assess the evidence for HPV testing in head and neck carcinomas. The guideline has since contributed to a quality measure in the Pathologists Quality Registry and has been widely cited across the globe.
In 2021, Dr. Lewis resumed his role as co-chair to lead the update of the guideline. Between 2021 and 2024, he collaborated with pathologists and experts in medical and radiation oncology to review over 1,800 publications, evaluating new evidence since the original guideline was released. Throughout this multi-year process, Dr. Lewis led monthly conference calls, took part in additional staff meetings, and devoted extensive time to reviewing data and to drafting and editing the manuscript and related documents.
To support the dissemination of the updated guideline, Dr. Lewis presented it at several conferences, including the 2024 American Society of Cytopathology Annual Meeting, the 2024 CAP annual meeting, and the 2025 United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP) Annual Meeting. He also contributed to a CAP TODAY article and to multiple educational resources for the guideline’s webpage. Most notably, he taught an implementation algorithm designed to help members administer the guideline.
In addition to his work on the HPV testing guideline, Dr. Lewis has delivered numerous lectures and seminars in collaboration with other organizations. He also participated in the CAP Biomarker Reporting in Head and Neck Tumors Panel.
Dr. Lewis’s leadership and educational efforts are helping to improve and standardize HPV testing across diverse pathology settings worldwide. This nomination honors his commitment to education, excellence in leadership, and dedication to advancing best practices in pathology.
Dr. Lewis is a pathologist at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona.