Why in the world does an academic general internist and primary care doctor need a website? Believe me, I asked myself the same question. I set up the site as a library for my work so that I might share references and articles more easily. If you stumbled upon this welcome page, I hope you find something of interest.

I am a general internist and professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, where I joined the faculty in 1997. I divide my time between clinical practice, medical education, and scholarly work related to evidence-based medicine. I’ve authored over 140 peer-reviewed articles and two books: Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives (2015) and Symptom to Diagnosis: An Evidence-Based Guide (4th Edition, 2019). Since 2022, most of my written output has been at Sensible Medicine.

I received my M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1993 and completed my residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.

I was an active teacher at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine for years, participating in every year of the curriculum. I directed the Internal Medicine Clerkship for 21 years and a course for 1st-year students, Medical Evidence, for 5 years. I directed Critical Appraisal of the Landmark Medical Literature for 4th-year medical students for 25 years.

In 2024, I began teaching in our Master of Science in the Biomedical Sciences.

My published articles cover biomedical research, reviews, health humanities pieces, and lay press articles. Dr. Vinay Prasad and I wrote Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives, a book for medical and lay audiences about evidence-based medicine. I also co-authored the textbook, Symptom to Diagnosis: An Evidence-Based Guide (4th Edition, 2019). This book teaches clinical reasoning and is widely used in medical schools, nursing schools, and physician assistant training programs. Symptom to Diagnosis has been translated into four other languages. This book is the basis of S2D: The Symptom to Diagnosis Podcast

My career honors include the Department of Medicine’s Clinical Teaching Award, the Department of Medicine’s Preclinical Teaching Award, and the Biological Sciences Division’s Distinguished Educator/Mentor Award. The national Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine awarded him the national Louis N. Pangaro, MD Educational Program Development Award, and the University of Chicago’s Academic Communicators Network awarded him their Excellence Award. The recgonition that I am most proud of was being selected as a favorite faculty member by the graduating class of the Pritzker School of Medicine 17 times.

Presently, I am the Associate Director of The Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence and a master in the Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators at the University of Chicago.