Robert Witzburg, MD, Honored for Physician Excellence with Jerome Klein Award

Robert Witzburg, MD, has been named the 2017 recipient of the Jerome Klein Award for Physician Excellence. Witzburg is the associate dean and director of admissions and professor of medicine at BUSM, and professor of health policy and management at BUSPH, and a general internal medicine physician at BMC.

The Jerome Klein Award was established in 2010 to commemorate Klein’s 50 years of service to BUSM/BMC and is presented annually to a physician who shares Dr. Klein’s attributes, including clinical and research excellence, leadership, and dedicated commitment to education and mentoring.

Witzburg has been a part of the BUSM/BMC community for more than 40 years. After graduating from BUSM in 1977, Witzburg completed his residency at Boston City Hospital, now BMC. He served as training program director and associate chief of medicine at Boston City Hospital for 12 years and then as associate chief medical officer at BMC. He was the first medical director of the BMC HealthNet Plan, a community-based managed care organization founded by BMC that offers comprehensive coverage to provide care for families across Massachusetts. Witzburg was also the first chief of the section of community medicine at BMC and BUSM and a founder, president, and medical director of the Neighborhood Health Plan.

“Bob Witzburg epitomizes what we as physicians want to be: a great clinician, superb teacher, skilled administrator, with a deep commitment to academic medicine,”  said Ravin Davidoff, MBBCh, chief medical officer at BMC. “He has an amazing passion and empathy for our patients and students.”

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. 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).

“It’s a great honor to receive the Jerome Klein Award from a community I have called home for so many years,” said Witzburg. “I’m extremely grateful to all of those who have served as mentors to me over the years, and the generations of patients, students, residents, and attending physicians that I have had the pleasure to teach and learn from.”