Dr. Robert Witzburg Announces Retirement

After 44 years on the Medical Campus, 36 years on the BUSM faculty and 16 years as Associate Dean of Admissions, Dr. Robert Witzburg, Professor of Medicine at BUSM and Health Policy and Management at BUSPH, has announced his intention to retire on July 1, 2018.

A 1973 graduate of Tufts University, Dr. Witzburg received his MD from Boston University in 1977 and completed a residency and chief residency in Medicine at Boston City Hospital (BCH) before joining the BUSM faculty in 1981.

Dr. Witzburg has published numerous peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and books, including the first clinical manual on the care of HIV patients in primary care practice, published in both English and Spanish and revised through four editions.

Bob served as Residency Program Director and Associate Chief of Medicine at BCH and then directed the merger of the BCH, University Hospital and the Boston VA Internal Medicine training programs in 1996.

An active clinician and teacher, he has received several teaching awards, and the Ambulatory Teaching Award of the Department of Medicine is named in his honor. Bob also has been recognized for his contributions by the Northeast Group on Student Affairs of the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston, the Massachusetts Home and Health Care Association, and the BUSM Alumni Association.

He was a founder and Medical Director of the Neighborhood Health Plan, a network model HMO based in community health centers and safety net hospitals that focused on enhancing health care services for vulnerable urban communities. Bob also served as Chief of Community Medicine, Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine, Associate Chief Medical Officer of BMC, and as the first Chief Medical Officer of the BMC HealthNet Plan.

Appointed Associate Dean of Admissions in 2002, Dr. Witzburg focused on the implementation and assessment of holistic review, authoring a New England Journal of Medicine Perspective on holistic review in 2013. He also held national leadership roles in achieving diversity in the physician workforce, using technology to facilitate individualized applicant assessment and in the development and validation of the new Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). At the national level, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the College Board, the National Science Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have supported Bob’s work.

We will have ample opportunity to thank Bob for his decades of service and to recognize his contributions though June 2018.