Alumni Profile: Richard Riegelman, MD '73, MPH, PhD

Patrick Remington, MD '81, MPH, director of the Master of Public Health (MPH) program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH), has admired Richard Riegelman for many years. And when he learned recently that Riegelman graduated from the medical school, he quickly invited him to come to campus this spring to discuss his work.

 

"Dr. Riegelman is, without a doubt, a pioneer in public health education," says Remington, professor of population health sciences and director of the Population Health Institute.

 

Remington cites Riegelman's role as founding dean of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS). And he adds that Riegelman "may be considered the dean of public health education in this country when you consider his early scholarship in writing insightful textbooks, as well as editing an emerging series of texts that is becoming the go-to source for public health programs. Moreover, he's at the cutting edge of expanding public health education to undergraduates and younger students."

 

Riegelman is currently a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. He also holds appointments in medicine and health policy there.

 

Richard Riegelman

He began his many years of service to George Washington (GW) in 1978, after earning an MPH and then a PhD — both concentrating on epidemiology — from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health following graduation from medical school.

 

"I always like crossing between disciplines," says Riegelman. "For a while I went from public health to clinical medicine and back again-and then I decided to combine the two."

 

Prelude to Evidence-Based Medicine

 

Shortly after completing his MPH and PhD, Riegelman synthesized some of his scholarly interests and wrote "Studying a Study and Testing a Test: How to Read the Medical Evidence," published in 1981. Now in its fifth edition, it teaches students how to critically assess not just the data but the design and research methods that generated it.

 

The book is considered by many to have contributed significantly to evidence-based medicine, which is widely defined as the process of finding, evaluating and using current research results as the basis for patient care.

 

"The textbook is brilliant in its insights into how to critically approach and appraise evidence in medical literature," says Remington, adding that the book has had a huge impact on his own development as a public health educator. "It was a generation ahead of its time."

 

Riegelman is more modest about it.

 

"I consider 'Studying the Study' to be a precursor of just one aspect of evidence-based medicine - the critical reading of research evidence," he says.

 

Role as Founding Dean

 

In the mid-1980s, GW medical school established an MPH program, and Riegelman was tapped to lead it.

 

"We started with 30 students and were dedicated to strengthening the program, both in enrollment and in the breadth of the offerings," he says.

 

Thanks largely to his efforts, the program steadily flourished. Ten years later, with the MPH program as one component, Riegelman founded the new School of Public Health and Health Services, using vision and determination to guide a collection of disparate public health and health services programs into a single entity.

 

"I love the idea that you can develop an institution that connects educational components into a thriving enterprise," he says, noting that more than 600 MPH students soon were enrolled.

 

With Washington, D.C.'s unique standing as the locus of national legislative and policy issues, Riegelman says it was clear what the school might become.

 

"We really wanted to become the school of public health in the nation's capital. And I think to a large extent, we have succeeded," he says. "We have a world-class health policy department that connects our students with legislative and policy work. And our global health department takes advantage of our Washington location by tying into global health initiatives."

 

More recent developments include a stronger emphasis on research as well as HIV/AIDS.

 

"Part of our focus is local, since the D.C. metro area has the country's highest rate of HIV/AIDS," he says. "Yet we have a strong international focus, too."

 

Public Health for Younger Students

 

Riegelman's most recent passion is educating undergraduates and he supports educating even younger students. He led the development of GW's undergraduate major in public health, which has been offered since 2003.

 

He explains that the emphasis on undergraduate public health education stems from a 2003 report issued by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Among other things, the report urges that: "All undergraduates should have access to education in public health."

 

"I used to have to tell people that the 'all' was not a typo," he laughs. "Of the 2,000 four-year colleges and universities, very few offered undergraduate public health. So we've spent the last five years developing a national effort to make this a reality."

 

Riegelman is at the forefront of the effort, serving as the first chair of the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) Task Force on Undergraduate Education.

 

As a first step, he and others at the ASPH and at the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research worked with the approximately 100 schools and/or accredited programs of public health.

 

"They quickly established undergraduate public health coursework, and many offer a public health minor or major," he says. "Those 100 schools represent about 5 percent, and we're now working with the other 95 percent of institutions."

 

As part of building undergraduate programs, Riegelman took on the editor's task of producing, with Jones and Bartlett Publishers, the Essential Public Health series of textbooks. Intended for the undergraduate and introductory graduate level, more than 10 titles currently are available. Future plans call for the publication of more than 20 titles spanning the entire spectrum of public health.

 

This is all part of a larger framework designed to incorporate public health education into K-12 schools, Riegelman explains.

 

"The objective," he says, "is not only to teach students personal health and wellness, but to help them understand the bigger picture issues, from environmental health to pandemic flu to healthcare systems."

 

Return Trip to Madison

 

Riegelman hasn't been back to Madison in several years, but he's glad to be returning to speak. And he's glad that the visit is slated for May, after the snow has melted. He recalls one unforgettable "snow day."

 

As a medical student he heard that UW-Madison announced a rare closing due to the foot or more of snow that had fallen.

 

"I asked Linda, then my girlfriend and now my wife, to go ‘traying' down the hill on cafeteria trays," he says.

This activity was new to Linda, a Californian, and Riegelman, a native Milwaukeean, says he enjoyed showing her the ropes.

 

"Afterwards I said, ‘Let me show you where we have our medical school classes.' So full of snow and trays in hand, we walked into a classroom-only to find that the medical school classes apparently had not been cancelled. We were pretty embarrassed at the amusement that greeted our entrance."

 

When Riegelman returns to visit the SMPH, he will encounter a medical school that has changed significantly since his student days. But the school's new mission-to integrate medicine and public health under one roof-will very likely resonate with him, even though it represents a different model of public health from the one he is most familiar with, which has separate but linked medical and public health schools.

 

"There need to be new ways to bring public health and medicine together on an equal footing," he says. "I look forward to seeing how, together, we can accomplish that."

 

by Moira Urich
This article appears in the winter 2009 issue of Quarterly.

Date Published: 02/16/2009