UH medical professor
receives service award

Burkle is recognized for his disaster
and humanitarian work

University of Hawaii professor of public health services and epidemiology Dr. Frederick Burkle has received the Award for Service to Medicine and Community from the University of Vermont College of Medicine's Medical Alumni Association.

Burkle was recognized for his work in disaster management and humanitarian assistance throughout the world and for exemplary military service.

The award is presented to graduates with an outstanding record of community service or who have assumed significant responsibilities in addition to medical practice.

Burkle earned his medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine in 1965.

He recently served as senior scholar, scientist and visiting professor at the Center for International Emergency, Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

He is former deputy assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development in the State Department and founded the Center of Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance of the World Health Organization.

Burkle served combat tours in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars. He was senior medical officer in Iraq on the Disaster Assistance Response Team for the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, USAID, and was interim minister of health in Iraq.

Burkle had residencies in pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Yale University after earning his medical degree. He holds graduate degrees from Yale, Dartmouth and University of California at Berkeley, and also has a diploma from the University of Geneva in Switzerland.

He is qualified in pediatrics, adolescent medicine, emergency medicine and psychiatry.

He is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and American Academy of Pediatrics and has published more than 120 articles and book chapters and four textbooks, including the definitive reference on disaster medicine.