This is part three of our interview, which was recorded on June 9, 2010 at the Global Tuberculosis Institute in Newark, NJ. > click here to view part one. >click here to view part two
Lee B. Reichman, MD, MPH, is the Founding Executive Director of the New Jersey Medical School Global Tuberculosis Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the New Jersey Medical School, in Newark, New Jersey.
From 1971-1974 he served as Director, Bureau of Tuberculosis Control and Assistant Commissioner of Health at the New York City Health Department. In 1974 he came to the then College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey Medical School as Director of the Pulmonary Division in the Department of Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine. He was promoted to Professor in 1977 and continued to serve as Director of the Pulmonary Division until 1993 when he founded the New Jersey Medical School National Tuberculosis Center, now the Global Tuberculosis Institute, reflecting its wider scope of activities. Since he joined the faculty at the New Jersey Medical School, he has been principal investigator on federal (NIH, CDC) grants and contracts totaling almost $37 million total costs.
He serves on several national and international committees, advisory boards, professional organizations and societies including the National Coalition to Eliminate Tuberculosis (now Stop TB USA) (past chair); U.S. Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis; International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (past vice-chair of the Executive Committee); American Lung Association (past president and recipient of the 1999 Will Ross Medal, their highest award); American Thoracic Society (honorary life member); American College of Chest Physicians (past Governor for New Jersey), and the World Health Organization Stop TB Partnership, where he has served as a Senior Advisor during a six month secondment. He is immediate past President of the Stakeholders Association and current member of the Board of Directors of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development and Ambassador in Research! America’s Paul G. Rogers Society for Global Health Research.
Dr. Reichman has published well over 200 articles, scientific reviews and book chapters, particularly about the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, control, patient adherence with therapy and the epidemiology of and advocacy for tuberculosis. He edited two editions of the first comprehensive medical book covering tuberculosis in 20 years: Tuberculosis, A Comprehensive International Approach (Marcel Dekker, 1993, 2000) and a third edition, Reichman and Hershfield’s Tuberculosis, A Comprehensive International Approach, edited by Mario Raviglione was published in 2006. Timebomb, The Global Epidemic of Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis with Janice Hopkins Tanne, McGraw-Hill, 2002 was named first prize winner as the best trade medical book for 2002 by the American Medical Writers Association. Paperback edition was published in September 2003. He has given invited lectures in 41 states and 43 countries.
After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree on 1960 from Oberlin College in Ohio, Dr. Reichman earned his medical degree in 1964 from New York University School of Medicine where in April 2003 he received its highest award, The Solomon A. Berson Award for lifetime achievement in Health Sciences. He completed his internship and the first year of his residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York and then served as a Peace Corps physician in Bolivia as a commissioned officer of the U.S. Public Health Service. He finished his training at Harlem Hospital Center in New York as senior medical resident and pulmonary fellow. He earned a Masters in Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore in 1971.