Tom Delbanco, M.D., is the Richard and Florence Koplow - James Tullis Professor of General Medicine and Primary Care, Harvard Medical School. Until 2002, he was Chief of the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a unit he created and led for more than 30 years.

Education

Educated at Harvard College and the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr Delbanco trained in internal medicine at Bellevue, Harlem, and Presbyterian Hospitals in New York. In 1971, he came to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and created one of the first primary care practice and teaching programs at an academic health center. Today, Healthcare Associates provides for more than 90,000 patient visits annually and serves 400 patients with HIV infection.

In 1974, Dr Delbanco developed one of the first residency training programs in general internal medicine and primary care, and in 1979 he created and led the Harvard Medical School Faculty Development and Fellowship Program that has now trained more than 250 general internists for academic careers.

Work History

In 1978, he spent a year in Congress as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow. Dr. Delbanco has directed three Salzburg Seminars, the first on alcoholism, the second on AIDS, and the third, 'Through the Patient's Eyes,' developing a health system that focuses on the patient perspective. One of 5 founders of the Society of General Internal Medicine, an organization of 3,000 physicians and social scientists in academic general internal medicine, he served as its President in 1986. He has been a Council member of the American Public Health Association, served on the Program Committee of the Institute of Medicine, and was a director of the National Public Health and Hospitals Institute. He was the founding Chair of the Picker Institutes in the USA and Europe, organizations that document patient experiences with care and work with patients to improve health services.

Clinical and Research Activities

A practicing internist, Dr Delbanco is the author of numerous scholarly papers and has co-edited three books: Alcoholism: A Guide for the Primary Care Physicians; Manual of Clinical Evaluation: Strategies for Cost-Effective Care; and, Through the Patients' Eyes. Writer and Director of a film and educational DVD, "When Things Go Wrong: Voices of Patients and Families," he was featured in Bill Moyers' television series and book, Healing and the Mind, and is senior editor of a monthly case study series, "Clinical Crossroads," published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In 1998, Dr. Delbanco was named a Master of the American College of Physicians, and in 2003, he received the Robert J. Glaser Award, the highest honor awarded by the Society of General Internal Medicine. In 2007, Harvard Medical School gave him the William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award.