Richard Root

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard K. Root (1 December 1937 – March 19, 2006) was a clinical teacher at the University of Washington Medical Center and former chief of medicine at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. He launched the infectious disease division at the University of Pennsylvania while a professor there in 1971.

After leaving the University of Pennsylvania, Root worked on infectious diseases at Yale University and served as vice chairman of medicine. In 1982 he was voted medical school teacher of the year. He subsequently became the Chief of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he was much admired by the residents and faculty as an academic leader, scholar, and teacher. He later became chief of medicine at Harborview 1991 and became an emeritus professor in 2002. He was a former president of the American Federation of Clinical Research, editor in chief of a textbook, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and, from 1986 to 1991, director of the National Institutes of Health's AIDS Advisory Committee.

Root received his MD from Johns Hopkins University in 1963. Residency and Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1963-1965. Chief Resident and Instructor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington from 1968-1969.

He was invited by the University of Pennsylvania Infectious Disease Department to help out on a project in Botswana. He intended to return to the United States at the end of April, but Root's life came to a sudden end three weeks later, due to a crocodile attack while on a wildlife tour of the Limpopo River. He was in the lead dugout canoe when a 13-foot crocodile followed him and tipped it over. It then leapt out of the water, grabbed Root by his neck and shoulders, pulled him under and drowned him. The crocodile which ended Root's life was never found.

Parts of his body were found a few days later and cremated.

References

Paulson, Tom (21 March 2006). "Top UW doctor killed by crocodile in Africa". Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — Info on Richard Root at the University of Washington

Authority control	VIAF: 27220812 ISNI: 0000 0001 1611 1811 BNF: cb13493117v

Persondata
Name	Root, Richard
Alternative names
Short description	American doctor
Date of birth	1938
Place of birth
Date of death	March 19, 2006
Place of death

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.