Richard Johnston, MD, Wins Prestigious Pediatrics Award

Richard B. Johnston Jr., MD, who led the National Jewish Department of Pediatrics from 1977 to 1986, then returned in 2004 as Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs, has won the 2008 John Howland Medal, the highest award given in academic pediatrics. The award honors those who have contributed to the study of children and their diseases, the prevention of illness, the promotion of health in childhood, and the promotion of pediatric education and research.

Between his two stints at National Jewish, Dr. Johnston served as the Medical Director of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation and as Physician-in-Chief at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Chairman of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. He also served as the Chief of the Immunology Section in the Department of Pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine. He has been President of the Society for Pediatric Research, the American Pediatric Society, and the Board of the International Pediatric Research Foundation. Dr. Johnston is a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and was a co-author of an influential IOM report that found no connection between vaccines and
autism.

Today, Dr. Johnston is serving as the Associate Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs at National Jewish and as the Associate Dean for Research Development at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.