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Media Contact:Debbie Bangledorf
Phone: (410) 955-1534
E-mail:
Dbangle@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu
Gabor Kelen, M.D., FRCP(C), FACEP, has been named professor and director of
the
Department of Emergency Medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and is the first
to hold
both titles at Hopkins.
Previously a division of the Department of Surgery, emergency medicine
was
established recently as a full-fledged academic department at Hopkins.
Status change allows Hopkins to lead a growing national trend," says
Kelen. "Emergency medicine is a young field - just 25 years old. But we have
watched our role
change dramatically in that short period of time."
According to James A. Block, M.D., president of the hospital Kelen is
an ideal
candidate for the post. "He is an accomplished researcher and a revered
clinician and we are
thrilled that he will be redefining and expanding this new department" says
Block.
Kelen is among the first emergency medicine physicians in the country
to have
original research efforts published in The New England Journal of Medicine and
the Annals of
Internal Medicine. He pioneered methodology that eventually confirmed the need
for universal
precautions by health-care providers. He was the first to reveal the futility
of testing patients for
the HIV virus, as many other infectious diseases, such as hepatitis B and
hepatitis C, posed a more
common threat to health-care workers. He has helped to identify the medical
economic and
compassionate roles that emergency services play in delivering health care
to patients with the HIV virus, and has pushed for greater national research
efforts along these
lines.
Kelen also has developed new curricula in The Johns Hopkins School of
Medicine
to reflect these changing trends, and routinely lectures to medical and public
health students on
AIDS, public policy and ethical issues in FHV testing. He has testified before
Congress on the
changing responsibilities of inner-city emergency departments, emergency
department health-care workers and AIDS. He also serves
as chairman of the American College of Emergency Physicians, Public Health
Committee,
chairman of the Society of Academic Emergency Physicians, Infectious Disease
Committee and
sits on the board of directors of the Emergency Medicine Foundation.
Among other awards, Kelen has received the Johns Hopkins (W.M. Keck)
clinician
Scientist Award, the American College of Emergency Physicians' Outstanding
Contribution to
Research Award and the Society of Emergency Medicine's Academic Excellence
Award.
Kelen earned his undergraduate degree from Carleton University in
Ottawa. He
received his medical degree from the University of Toronto, and completed his
internship and
residency at St. Michael's hospital, Toronto. He served as chief resident, and
completed his
training in emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins, joining the staff and faculty
in 1984. Soon
after, he took on the posts of residency director and research director for
emergency medicine.
In 1991, he was named an associate professor, and in 1992, acting director.
Kelen, 42, lives in Baltimore City with his wife Laurie and children,
Elizabeth and Andrew.