May 12, 2004
Dr. Eric B. Larson wins Glaser Award
Medical Society honors director of Group Health Center for Health Studies
Seattle—Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH, director of Group Health Center for Health Studies, will receive the highest award given by the Society of General Internal Medicine, an international group of academic general internists. The Society will honor Larson with the Robert J. Glaser Award on May 15 at their 27th Annual Meeting in Chicago.
The Glaser Award recognizes outstanding contributions to medical generalism in research, education—or, as for Larson, both:
- His research on aging and improving health care quality "has consistently anticipated future trends," said Stephan D. Fihn, MD, MPH, head of the University of Washington's Division of General Internal Medicine.
- As an educator, Larson "serves as an outstanding role model," Fihn added.
- Concurrently, Larson has continued "as an astute and compassionate clinician," said Fihn.
C. Seth Landefeld, MD, a University of California, San Francisco professor of medicine, hailed Larson's "creativity" and "concrete action to keep generalism alive … when it is threatened." For instance, Larson chaired a Society task force whose proposal to redefine general internal medicine was summarized in the Annals of Internal Medicine's April 20, 2004 issue.
A committee of Society of General Internal Medicine members selects the winners of the yearly award given in honor of Robert J. Glaser, MD, a longtime leader in American academic medicine. Glaser served as dean of the medical schools at Washington University in St. Louis, Stanford University, and the University of Colorado, helping to transform medical education and research. Previous awardees have included renowned clinical epidemiologists David Sackett, MD, and Alvan Feinstein, MD, as well as many and other well-known academic leaders. Grants from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, and individuals support the award.
About Eric Larson, MD, MPH
Larson became director of Group Health Center for Health Studies in November 2002. A past president of the Society of General Internal Medicine, Larson is also an attending physician and a professor of medicine and health services at the University of Washington. There, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the public health school and, from 1989 to 2002, the medical center's medical director and the medical school's associate dean for clinical affairs.
Larson graduated from Harvard Medical School and trained at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and Seattle's University Hospital. A fellow of the American College of Physicians, Larson has chaired its Board of Regents since April 22.
Group Health Center for Health Studies
Founded in 1947, Group Health Cooperative is a Seattle-based, consumer-governed, nonprofit health care system that coordinates care and coverage. Group Health Cooperative is ranked "Highest in Member Satisfaction among Commercial Health Plans in the Northwest Region" by J.D. Power and Associates. For 25 years, the Group Health Center for Health Studies has conducted research on preventing, diagnosing, and treating major health problems. Government and private research grants provide its main funding.