Physician and health care researcher, born 1926. Perkoff received his medical degree from the Washington University School of Medicine in 1948. After an internship and residency in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah, Perkoff became an investigator at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Disease at the National Institutes of Health from 1952-54. Perkoff then returned to the University of Utah, serving as research instructor in Medicine, 1954-58, and research assistant professor of Medicine, 1958-62. In addition, he was chief of the medical service of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Salt Lake City, 1961-63. In 1963 Perkoff returned to St. Louis and the Washington University School of Medicine, joining the faculty as associate professor of Medicine. He served as professor of Medicine from 1965-79 and as director of the Division of Health Care Research from 1968-1979. In 1979 Perkoff became a curators’ professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine.
Summary:
Perkoff describes his accelerated educational experience at Washington University during World War II and his decision to accept an internship at the University of Utah. He discusses his early research in metabolic and hereditary diseases at the University of Utah, where he was on the faculty and chief of the medical service of the Veterans Administration Hospital. Perkoff relates his returning to St. Louis, his efforts at St. Louis City Hospital to establish a full-time Department of Medicine, and the founding of the Division of Health Care Research at the Washington University School of Medicine. There is an extended discussion of the establishment of a health maintenance organization at Washington University, the Medical Care Group, its structure, financial structure and goals, and its role in training physicians. Perkoff also discusses the delivery of health care in rural settings, his predictions for the development of allied health personnel programs, and the future of medical care delivery.
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