The David Rogers Health Policy Colloquium

David Rogers, MD


What is the Rogers Colloquium?

The David Rogers Health Policy Colloquium, a weekly lunch time seminar series, is named after the late Dr. David Rogers, an internationally renowned physician, educator, and humanitarian. The Colloquium provides an informal forum for invited speakers to present an overview of their work in progress, followed by a question and discussion period. While at Weill Cornell during the last decade of his life, Dr. Rogers established an informal discussion group to which he invited friends and other visitors to discuss their involvement with research, clinical programs or demonstration projects. The unique feature of this discussion group was the emphasis on audience participation, both in the form of questions and answers and statement of opinions. When Dr. Rogers died in 1994, the regular attendees of the discussion group decided to form an Advisory Board and continue the weekly exchange of ideas. Thus, the David Rogers Health Policy Colloquium was born.

What is the Content of the Colloquium?

The overall theme of the Colloquium is health care policy broadly defined. Issues in domestic health policy, such as access to health care, health care disparities, health care reform, pharmaceutical policy, ethical issues are discussed. In addition, the Colloquium includes global health policy topics, such as comparative health care systems, the WHO essential drugs program, the relationship of resource rich and resource poor countries and cutting edge issues as they arise.

Who attends the Rogers Colloquium?

The attendees of the Colloquium include junior and senior faculty from basic science to clinical and public health departments, medical students, residents, postdoctoral fellows, nurses, college and hospital administrators, and pastoral providers. As such, the Rogers Health Policy Colloquium is one of the most interdisciplinary forums at the Medical Center.

What is the Colloquium Commitment?

All Colloquium members (excluding students) are asked to make a commitment to attend at least 50% of all Colloquium sessions each year. Colloquium members are asked for a voluntary, tax-deductible contribution of $200 per year.

About David Rogers, M.D. 

David Rogers was one of the youngest graduates of the Cornell University Medical College. He did his residency training at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, and returned to the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center for an infectious disease fellowship. He joined the faculty after his medical training, but soon thereafter, he was recruited to Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee where he became the youngest Chair of a Department of Medicine in the United States. Subsequently, he became Dean of the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins from which he was recruited to become the first President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the largest foundation in the United States devoted exclusively to health. At the Foundation, he created several enduring programs including the RWJ Clinical Scholars Program and RWJ Health Policy Fellows Program. When he retired from the Foundation, he returned to Cornell University Medical College as the Walsh McDermott University Professor of Medicine. At the end of his remarkable career, Dr. Rogers became a major advisor for the New York State AIDS Advisory Council and Vice-Chair of the PresidentÕs National Commission on AIDS. He was responsible for the national guidelines on AIDS policy and physicians.

"In recent years, we have done much hand-wringing in medicine about our fall from grace as competition, micro-management, and more and more regulations have entered our hallowed world. As a profession, we have done too little to demonstrate our social conscience, our commitment to our patients and the welfare of the broader community I believe we have a collective responsibility as a profession to be social activists."

-David Rogers, M.D.

Personnel

Curtis L. Cole, M.D.
Rogers Colloquium, Co-Director

Beth McGinty, M.D.

Rogers Colloquium, Co-Director

Oliver Fein, M.D.
Rogers Colloquium Director Emeritus

Daniel Splitgerber
Rogers Colloquium Administrator

Paul Howell
Rogers Colloquium Coordinator