LITTLE ROCK -- University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Chancellor Dan Rahn, MD, and Robert Hopkins Jr., MD, professor in the UAMS College of Medicine have joined an elite group of physicians awarded Mastership in the American College of Physicians (ACP), the national organization of internists.

Rahn and Hopkins, director of the Division of Internal Medicine in the college's Department of Internal Medicine, were two of 53 internists from across the world to receive the honor at the ACP's annual scientific conference, the Internal Medicine Meeting. They were the only two Arkansans to achieve Mastership this year. The last Arkansan to be honored was in 2012.

Only about 850 internists, or just more than .5 percent, of 148,000 ACP members worldwide have been awarded Mastership of the College.

Rahn has been UAMS chancellor since 2009, coming to Arkansas from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, where he served as president for eight years and as senior vice chancellor for health and medical programs for the University System of Georgia.

A native of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Rahn is a graduate of Yale University and the Yale University School of Medicine.

Hopkins is a professor in the UAMS departments of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine. He has served as director of the Combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program since 2006 and was associate director from 1995-2006. A 1989 graduate of Medical College of Georgia, he completed his residency in internal medicine/pediatrics at UAMS in 1993.

Starting as an instructor in the UAMS Department of Pediatrics in 1993 and the Department of Internal Medicine in 1995, Hopkins has held positions as an assistant professor in pediatrics and associate professor in both departments.