David W Baker, MD, MPH, FACP
Professor of Medicine
Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine
dwbaker@northwestern.edu

The Division of General Internal Medicine (GIM) of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine combines outstanding clinical services, innovative and energetic educational programs, and nationally-recognized clinical and health services research programs.  We have over 50 faculty in GIM, and our backgrounds are extremely diverse.  Our clinicians including primary care physicians, hospitalists, and experts in medical consultation, perioperative medicine, student health, and women's health.  The full-time faculty's clinical services are provided via the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation (NMFF) and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center.  All of our facilities have state of the art electronic medical records, and many of the faculty work actively to continuously improve our electronic medical record system.  Several projects are currently underway to explore how the electronic medical record can be used to improve quality of care and ensure patient safety. 

Our faculty occupy most of the teaching leadership positions in the Department of Medicine, as well as a relatively large number of leadership positions in our medical students' pre-clinical education.  GIM faculty have also played central roles in developing the innovative Patient, Physician, and Society curriculum, which now extends throughout all four years of undergraduate medical education.  The major teaching activities of the division as a whole include 1) the primary care clerkship, a four-week required clerkship for medical students, that is multidisciplinary and includes general pediatrics and family medicine, 2) our internal medicine residency program within the Department of Medicine, and 3) our fellowship program, which is integrated with the Masters in Public Health program at Northwestern.  We also have a large number of contributed-services faculty who provide a significant amount of teaching and add to the strength of Northwestern's programs.

Many of our faculty are actively involved in research, ranging from doctor-patient communication to the relationship of inflammatory markers to functional outcomes for patients with peripheral arterial disease. The Division has four research concentration areas: 1) Health Communication, 2) Improving Quality of Care and Safety, 3) Clinical Epidemiology, and 4) Reducing Disparities for Vulnerable Populations. In addition, several division members head distinct research programs. Dr. Kevin Weiss directs the Institute for Healthcare Studies, which includes the Center for Patient Safety and the Center for Healthcare Equity. Dr. Weiss is also the director of the Veteran's Affairs HSR&D Midwest Center for Health Services Policy and Research, based at the Hines VA Hospital and Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. Many of these researchers now have academic appointments at Northwestern. Dr. Linda Emanuel is the Director of the Northwestern Buehler Center on Aging, which includes a growing group of geriatrics health services researchers in addition to her pioneering Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJ) funded Educating Physicians in End of Life Care (EPEC) team. Gregory Makoul PhD directs the Center for Communication and Medicine (CCM), which works to improve communication in and about medicine through innovative teaching and assessment, theory-driven research, and exchange of information, tools, and experience.  This program has a national and international reputation for its work in studying doctor-patient communication and improving the communication skills of students and residents. Finally, we benefit greatly from the rich research community at Northwestern. GIM faculty currently collaborate on projects with faculty in the Department of Preventive Medicine, the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Institute for Healthcare Studies, the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, and the Northwestern University School of Communication.

I am proud to be a part of this dynamic, diverse group of clinicians, educators, and researchers. The following pages give you more
information about the division and its affiliates.