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Howard K. Rabinowitz, M.D., a family doctor who has been a member of the Jefferson Family Medicine faculty for 30 years, has been named the Ellen M. and Dale W. Garber Professor of Family Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Dr. Rabinowitz, a national leader in primary care and an international expert in increasing the supply of rural physicians, is director of the Physician Shortage Area Program (PSAP) at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. The author of more than 50 publications, Dr. Rabinowitz has also written a book Caring for the Country: Family Doctors in Small Rural Towns, which tells the stories of the lives and work of 10 family doctors caring for rural America, all of whom are graduates of Jefferson’s PSAP.

“Dr. Rabinowitz’s commitment to broadening the reach of our health care system lies in his vast contributions to improving the supply and retention of rural family physicians,” said Richard C. Wender, M.D., alumni professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Jefferson Medical College. “He believes that everyone deserves access to health care, and his dedication to this principle has benefited countless patients in this region and throughout the country.”

Established in 1984 through the estate of Dale Garber, M.D., Jefferson Medical College Class of 1924, the Ellen M. and Dale W. Garber Professorship in Family Medicine was created to support the Department of Family and Community Medicine and help increase the number of family physicians graduating each year. Dr. Garber, who was born in the small rural town of Blain, Pa., spent his professional career as a beloved family doctor in Chester County, Pa. Edward H. McGehee, M.D., Class of 1945 was the first to hold this title.

Board certified in family medicine and pediatrics, Dr. Rabinowitz is currently a member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine. He is a past-president of the American Board of Family Medicine and a former member of the Step II Committee on Public Health and Preventive Medicine of the United States Medical Licensure Examination.

Dr. Rabinowitz served as national project co-director of the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’
$8 million Undergraduate Medical Education for the 21st Century project, a program to help teach medical students how to provide quality medical care. He also served on the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Generalist Physician Initiative.

From 1993 to 1994, Dr. Rabinowitz was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in the Office of U.S. Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV of West Virginia. He currently serves on the Board of the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship Programs. He served as a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee for Implementing a Graduate Medical Education Trust Fund and as a consultant to the Council on Graduate Medical Education for its sixth report to Congress on “The Effect of Managed Care on the Physician Workforce and Medical Education.”

A native of Pittsburgh, Dr. Rabinowitz earned his medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1971 and attended Rutgers University in New Jersey from 1964 to 1967.