Richard W. Besdine, MD
Professor of Medicine, Director of the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research at Brown University, Director of the Division of Geriatrics in the Department of Medicine, Chief of Geriatrics at Lifespan, and Greer Professor of Geriatric Medicine
Richard W. Besdine, MD, has devoted his career to development and advancement of geriatrics through university-based and public health care policy work. For nearly 30 years, he has developed and managed research, health care delivery systems and educational programs on aging at a university base. He is Professor of Medicine, Director of the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research at Brown University, Director of the Division of Geriatrics in the Department of Medicine, Chief of Geriatrics for Lifespan, and first Greer Professor of Geriatric Medicine. Dr. Besdine also served as Interim Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences at Brown Medical School (2002-2005). He is past President of the American Geriatrics Society (5/03-5/04), and chair of the Board of Directors (5/04-5/05).
Dr. Besdine has created innovative recruitment and training programs for future leaders in the field of geriatrics, and trained nearly 100 faculty geriatricians while leader of the three fellowship programs he founded; he has designed the discipline-specific and interdisciplinary programs to meet educational needs for primary health care professionals in geriatrics. Dignity for older adults and academic excellence have characterized his approach to care of elderly persons. His activities have included clinical care, teaching, research, administration, public policy, international affairs, writing, and evaluating the work of others; he has been listed in multiple editions of Best Doctors in America for internal medicine and geriatrics. He has authored nearly 100 scholarly publications on aging, and edits widely in medicine. Before coming to Brown in 2000, he was Professor of Medicine, founding Director of the UConn Center on Aging and first Travelers Professor of Geriatrics and Gerontology at the U of CT Health Center (UCHC) School of Medicine. He was also Principal Investigator of a NIH Claude Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, and oversaw studies of interventions to prolong vitality in older persons. Prior to coming to CT in 1986, he was on the Harvard Medical School faculty for 15 years.During that time, he co-founded Harvard's Division on Aging with John W. Rowe, M.D., and developed one of the first academic Geriatrics fellowship training programs (1977).
Dr. Besdine spent 1995-1997 in Federal service; he was Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Health Standards and Quality Bureau for the Health Care Financing Administration, responsible for setting standards, inspection, enforcement and improvement of health care quality for our nation’s 70 million Medicare beneficiaries and Medicaid recipients.As HSQB Director, he had responsibility for 750 staff and a $960 million budget.
He has served as panelist on the elderly on the President's Commission on Mental Health, as consultant to the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in Geriatric Medicine, on NIA’s Task Force on Reversible Dementia, and on many scientific review panels and study sections. He serves on the National Board of Directors for the American Federation for Aging Research, for the American Geriatrics Society, the Education and Research Foundation of the American Society of Consulting Pharmacists, and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Alliance for Aging Research. A national reputation for leadership in geriatrics was recognized with the American Geriatrics Society's 1991 Milo D. Leavitt Award for eminence in geriatric education. He has also been honored with the 1995 Freeman Award of the Gerontological Society of America, the 1997 President’s Award of the American Society on Aging, and the 1998 Joan Quinn Award.
A graduate of Haverford College (cum laude) and of U of PA School of Medicine, he trained in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Besdine trained in Geriatrics at the University of Glasgow in 1972 with Sir Ferguson Anderson. He is board certified in internal medicine, geriatrics and infectious disease.
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