Bernard Ewigman

   

Bernard Ewigman, MD, MSPH

Titles:

  • Professor and Chair

Affiliations:

  • The University of Chicago Department of Family Medicine
  • The University of Chicago/NorthShore University HealthSystem

Specialties:

  • Family Medicine

Honors/Awards:

  • Chancellor’s Award for Creative Research-University of Missouri-Columbia
  • Outstanding Young Physician-University of Missouri Medical Alumni Association
  • Pew Award for the Outstanding Primary Care Researcher in the US

What is it about the FPIN mission that had you want to participate in the organization?

I conceptualized FPIN in 1997 as a one of the 7 components of a family medicine research center at the University of Missouri-Columbia that was initially funded by a $900,000 grant from the American Academy of Family Physicians. As the Founding Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Chicago in 2002, I negotiated an additional $500,000 for start up costs for FPIN. The aspect of the FPIN mission that motivated me then and still motivate me today is the devotion to the discovery, integration, teaching, and dissemination of the patient oriented and evidence based knowledge for the benefit of patients.

What goals do you have for your respective FPIN project?

Our goals with PURLs is to identify all new original research that is relevant, valid, based on clinically meaningful patient oriented outcomes that lead to practical changes in practice recommendations that can be immediately implemented by family physicians and other primary clinicians in their practices. We hope to engage as many physicians, behavioral scientists, pharmacists and other FPIN clinicians and scientists as possible in the nomination, review, selection and publication of PURLs and the sister publication series, Diving for PURLs. Relevance, practicality and meaningfulness are best judged by the clinicians and patients in communities in which the practice recommendation applies, so having urban, suburban and rural clinicians who serve culturally and economically diverse communities will help insure that all new research that should lead to new practice recommendations is accurately identified and disseminated.

What is your philosophy as an editor?

I like to try to encourage authors, most of whom do a tremendous amount of work in preparing manuscripts, and at the same time use editing to create learning opportunities. I look for precision in wording, a logical flow and simple but meaningful descriptions of the clinical, design and statistical issues involved in summarizing a study and the relevant background literature. The audience that I always imagine reading the PURLs that I edit are practicing family physicians who need pithy, accurate and useful information to solve the clinical problems they are faced with every day.