Biography

Education and Medical Training:

I am a native of Winona, Minnesota. I received my undergraduate education in history and religion at Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania, where I was elected to phi beta kappa and graduated magna cum laude in 1974. I earned my Doctor of Medicine degree in 1978 from Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota. I subsequently trained in general pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Children’s Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, followed by training in pediatric infectious diseases, hematology research, and pediatric critical care medicine at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. I am certified by the American Board of Pediatrics in general pediatrics and in pediatric critical care medicine, and am a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

I have had a long-standing interest in how medical practice evolved in America and how it reached its present state of affairs. Reflecting that interest, I earned a Master of Arts degree in History of Medicine from the University of Minnesota, and am a member of the American Association for the History of Medicine.

Professional Activities:

I have practiced pediatric critical care medicine for over thirty years. I was for many years Director of the Pediatric Critical Care Service at the Mayo Clinic and Professor of Pediatrics at Mayo Medical School, as well as Director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Mayo Eugenio Litta Children’s Hospital. While on the faculty at Mayo, I was the author of over fifty scientific papers and book chapters in medical texts, and was the recipient of major grant awards from the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the March of Dimes Foundation. I now devote my time to practicing pediatric critical care as President of Pediatric Intensive Care Associates, P.C., as Medical Director of the PICU for CentraCare Health Systems, and to writing about medicine for general readers.

You can see my detailed CV here, at Linkedin