Fall/Winter 2006 - University of Rochester Medical Center

in memorium
Robert Berg, M.D.
Robert Berg, M.D., founding chair of the
University of Rochester’s Department of
Community and Preventive Medicine and
a friend of School of Medicine and Dentistry
students for almost 50 years, died at Highland
Hospital on July 11. He was 87.
During his tenure, Dr. Berg established
the University’s Community and Preventive
Medicine program as a national leader. The
Medical Center’s decision to adopt community
health as one of its four missions can be
directly traced to him. In 1968, he published
a community survey of the health status and
service needs of the elderly residents of
Monroe County, N.Y. This study served as a
model nationally and internationally as
communities recognized the need to finance
and deliver health services to growing populations
of the elderly.
A teacher at heart, Dr. Berg was much
beloved by medical students, faculty and
staff, many of whom continued to help him in
recent years as his health failed. In spite of
his age and frailty, he embarked on research
projects and was hoping to take part in a
Mastering Medical Information course this
year.
At the University’s memorial service,
Thomas A. Pearson, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.,
Albert D. Kaiser Professor and chair of the
Department of Community and Preventive
Medicine, said Dr. Berg loved students and
for years “did yeoman’s service interviewing
medical student applicants, tutoring in discussion
groups, and generally providing advice
and counsel to students.
“On a regular basis, I would breeze
into his open office door, only to find a
student fully engaged in conversation with
Bob,” Pearson said. “It was always the same:
the student was sitting bolt upright, involved
in the discussion, with the lower jaw slightly
agape with wonder, and upturned in the
corners of the mouth in amusement.
Numerous students, some of them here today,
received counsel from Bob that literally redirected
their lives to pursuits that have lead to
important contributions in medicine and
public health.”
At the service, Andrew Sorensen, Ph.D.,
M.P.H., a former School of Medicine faculty
member who now is president of the
University of South Carolina, marveled at
Dr. Berg’s abilities.
“Many of us who embark on careers
in higher education find the demands of
balancing research projects, pedagogical
responsibilities, and administrative duties —
to say nothing of commitments to family —
so overwhelming that we fail to take sufficient
time to nurture our students and mentor
our younger faculty colleagues,” Sorensen
said. “To do all that while sustaining irrepressible
intellectual curiosity and
indefatigable zest for life is more than most
of us can muster, or indeed fathom. Yet Bob
managed to do it all, and do it with grace.”
James Haley, M.D. (M ’85), praised
Dr. Berg’s gift for friendship.
“Bob Berg was my friend,” said Haley,
chair of the Department of Medicine for the
Unity Health System in Rochester. “It is the
highest compliment I can give him, because,
to Bob, the web of friendship had a profound
meaning; commitment to friendship was a
core value in Bob’s character. If we could all
touch a tenth of the lives that Bob did, have a
tenth of the friends that he had, our lives
would be incredible successes.”
Dr. Berg, a native of Spokane, Wash.,
graduated from Harvard College in 1940
and Harvard Medical School in 1943. After
serving his internship and residency at
Massachusetts General Hospital, he was on
active duty at the U.S. Navy Hospital in
Chelsea, Mass. He then spent a year at the
Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
He returned to Massachusetts General as
chief resident in medicine, and then was
promoted to several positions at Harvard
Medical School.
In 1958, Dr. Berg was recruited to the
University to establish the Department of
Community and Preventive Medicine. He
became the first to hold the endowed position
of Albert D. Kaiser Professor. A history of the
Medical Center describes the recruitment of
Dr. Berg and the formation of the department
as an innovative move that was critically
important in imprinting on the School’s
teaching program a commitment to community
health.
Dr. Berg and his colleagues played
a significant role in the development of the
Regional Medical Program, a cooperative
community-wide effort to enhance the education
of all health care providers. They also
helped build a network of community health
centers.
After only two years at the University,
Dr. Berg served for a year as acting administrator
of Strong Memorial Hospital during a
time of transition at the School of Medicine
and Strong. He later led an expanded department
called the Department of Preventive,
Family and Rehabilitation Medicine at the
Medical Center, retiring as chairman in 1984.
He also served as associate dean for planning
in the School of Medicine.
Dr. Berg was appointed as a chairman
or member of several national and state
boards and committees. He frequently spoke
out on health care, costs and the limits of
care. In 1975, he was one of five experts on
a symposium panel in New York City that
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