Li Ka Shing Building
291 Campus Drive, Palo Alto, CA 94305
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Presenter: Jerry Kassirer, MD
Distinguished Professor, Senior Assistant to the Dean
Tufts University School of Medicine
Jerome P. Kassirer, MD, a native of Buffalo, NY, graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Buffalo School of Medicine in 1957. He trained in Internal Medicine at Buffalo General Hospital and in Nephrology at the New England Medical Center in Boston. He joined the faculty of Tufts University School of Medicine in 1961, was named Professor of Medicine in 1974, and was the Sara Murray Jordan Professor of Medicine from 1987 to 1991. For two decades he served as Vice Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Tufts. Between 1991 and 1999, Dr. Kassirer was Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. He is currently Distinguished Professor and Senior Assistant to the Dean at Tufts University School of Medicine, and, since leaving the Journal, he has been an adjunct faculty member or consultant at Yale University, Case School of Medicine, and Stanford University.
Kassirer has published numerous original research and clinical studies, textbook chapters and books on nephrology (in particular, acid-base equilibrium), medical decision making, and the diagnostic process. He was a co-founder and co-editor of Nephrology Forum in the journal Kidney International and of Clinical Problem Solving in Hospital Practice. His books include Acid-Base (1982), On The Take: How Medicine’s Complicity With Big Business can Endanger Your Health (2004), Learning Clinical Reasoning (2009), and Unanticipated Outcomes: a Medical Memoir (2017)
Kassirer was elected to AOA as a student and was named the AOA Distinguished Clinical Teacher of the Year in 1989. He is a Master of the American College of Physicians and has received the College’s John Phillips Award. He was named Distinguished Alumnus by the School of Medicine at the University at Buffalo, has received the Distinguished Faculty Award from Tufts University School of Medicine, and the Distinguished Service Award of the Alumni Association of Tufts University. In 2009 he received the David E. Rogers Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges. He has several honorary degrees, including one from L’Universite Rene Descartes in Paris.
Kassirer has served on the American College of Physicians’ Board of Governors and Board of Regents, chaired the National Library of Medicine’s Board of Scientific Counselors, is a past Chairman of the American Board of Internal Medicine and a past Director of the National Committee on Quality Assurance. He has been elected to the Association of American Physicians, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the Human Factors Subcommittee of the National Commission on Forensic Science. In editorials during his tenure at the New England Journal of Medicine and in multiple publications since, he has promoted professionalism, ethical scientific conduct, patient involvement in decision making, appropriate use of firearms, and reliable approaches to the assessment of the quality of health care. He was been highly critical of for-profit medicine, the abuses of managed care, political intrusions into medical decisions, and physicians’ financial conflicts of interest.