Awards
- Herman Frederic Lieber Award - 2002
About Richard B. Kohler
Richard B. Kohler, M.D, is the Vice Chair for Education, Department of Medicine, and Professor of Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Until October 2003 he was program director for the internal medicine training program. Dr. Kohler received his undergraduate degree from the Pennsylvania State University and medical degree from Temple University School of Medicine. He completed his internship, residency, and chief residency in internal medicine and his fellowship in infectious diseases at Indiana University. He joined the Indiana University School of Medicine faculty in 1977.
Before becoming internal medicine residency program director in 1991, Dr Kohler directed the infectious diseases fellowship-training program from 1984 to 1994 and the third-year internal medicine clerkship from 1988 to 1991. During his tenure as clerkship director, he initiated the process of integrating internal medicine ambulatory care training into the clerkship. As program director since 1991, he has fostered the teaching of residents to become better medical teachers during an annual resident retreat. He has been very active in the teaching arena for medical students in all years of training and for residents and fellows and won the Residents' Teaching Award from the Department of Medicine in 1992, the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Department of Medicine in 1996, and the Teaching Excellence Recognition Award from the School of Medicine in 1997.
In the non-educational area, he has conducted research in the area of rapid diagnosis of infections and also participated in clinical trials of new infection treatments. Most of his 111 publications have been in these two areas. He was awarded a U.S. patent for his method to diagnose Legionnaires' disease. He continues to provide primary and consultative care in infectious diseases and to staff the general medicine services at his program's teaching hospitals.
Dr. Kohler is a Master of the American College of Physicians.