Dr. Roger Rosenblatt, professor of medicine and vice chair of the University of Washington Department of Family Medicine, has received one of six national 1996 Primary Care Achievement Awards from the Pew Health Professions Commission.
The awards were presented Feb. 27 at the Third National Primary Care Conference of the Health Resources and Services Administration in Washington, D.C. The Primary Care Awards program is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco, in cooperation with the U.S. Public Health service. Each award carries a $5,000 prize. The awards are designed to honor primary care as the cornerstone of the country's health care system.

"In today's rapidly evolving health care system, primary care is playing an increasingly central role in meeting the demand for basic health care and preventive services," said Dr. Edward O'Neil, executive director of the Pew Health Professions Commission.

"Dr. Rosenblatt has helped create a research agenda in family medicine that has improved the delivery of care to underserved populations in the U.S. and overseas," the award citation noted.

The awards are given in recognition of excellence in advancing primary care in the United States in three separate categories: education, patient care and research. Rosenblatt was the only individual honored in the research category, along with Ambulatory Sentinel Practice Network in Denver, Colo.

Rosenblatt came to the UW in 1971 as a medicine intern after graduating from Harvard and then earning M.D. and M.P.H. degrees from Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health. In 1972 he moved to the newly established Department of Family Medicine, where he completed his residency.

He joined the Department of Family Medicine as a full-time faculty member in 1977, and was director of the department's Research Section from 1979 until 1985, when he became vice chair of the department. He founded the WAMI (Washington/ Alaska/Montana/Idaho) Rural Health Research Center in 1988 and continues his involvement in that program, funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration of the Public Health Service. He is also an adjunct professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine's Department of Health Services.

Rosenblatt has received several other honors, including the 1996 Curtis Hames Award for family medicine research. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1987 and has received the Research Award of the American Rural Health Association. In 1992 he received a senior international fellowship award from the NIH Fogarty Center to be a visiting professor at the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff. He has also served on numerous national advisory groups on rural health care and health services planning, and has taught and conducted studies in Israel, New Zealand, Australia, Uruguay and Wales.