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From his office on the 14th floor of Abbott Hall, Russell Robertson, MD, exudes warmth and a quiet attentiveness, just what you'd want from a family physician if you, your spouse, or child was ill.

Last fall the Feinberg School leadership decided that Dr. Robertson was just who they wanted to lead the Department of Family Medicine, not solely because of his caring attributes as a physician but also because of his commitment to student education and keen awareness of the importance of nurturing faculty members in their academic careers.

His winning traits for the position go beyond the interpersonal. Dr. Robertson has 20 years' experience on faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, where he was associate professor of family and community medicine and associate dean for faculty affairs. During his tenure there he served in numerous administrative and hospital capacities, including chair of the Medical Ethics Committee at Columbia Hospital, chief of family medicine at Good Samaritan Medical Center, and Family Practice Residency Program director at both Columbia and Good Samaritan.

Chosen among the "Top Doctors in America" and "Top Family Doctors in America," the Michigan native was one of 17 physicians nationwide appointed to the Council on Graduate Medical Education by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in 2003. Now vice chair of the council, Dr. Robertson and his fellow members advise Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services on issues related to physician supply and distribution.

Dr. Robertson has advised not only Congress but a wide spectrum of the population as well. Since joining the medical school last October, he has begun a monthly health column in the Pioneer Press Newspapers, which serves the Chicago suburbs with 64 community newspapers. For a decade he wrote a twice monthly medical column for community newspapers in the Milwaukee area, and for the last five years he was the guest physician twice a month on the city's Fox television affiliate. "I like translating science into terms people can understand," says the former elementary school teacher.

In fact, Dr. Robertson's experiences as a teacher led to his interest in family medicine. "As a teacher I liked interacting with families and children and watching children develop," shares Dr. Robertson. "At the same time, I was looking for a field that would be more academically challenging."

Having no premed courses to his credit, he quit teaching and completed all the required math and science courses for medical school in one year. "It was intense," he recalls, "but I thought it would approximate some of the intensity of medical school. If I couldn't cut it, I figured medical school wasn't for me."

With the support of wife Sandra, also a teacher, he successfully completed the courses, then taught junior high school for a year while applying to medical schools. The nontraditional student was accepted to Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit and went on to a family practice residency in Grand Rapids, Michigan, before joining the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Staff members such as Trish Niemeck Georgas and Austin Harvey play a crucial role in the attaining department goals, says Dr. Robertson.

"What differentiates family medicine from other specialties is its community-oriented approach to caring for people. Sometimes medicine can be reductionistic, taking a technical approach to health care or focusing heavily on human physiology, at times to the exclusion of environmental factors," remarks Dr. Robertson.

"We see our patients as part of a family and community and understand that overlapping circles of influence exist in one's environment that can manifest either as a physical problem or as a nonphysical root cause of a patient's behavior," he continues. "By learning about those environmental and community factors, you're in a better position to help your patients and may not need to apply medical technology to solve their problems."

After 20 years in Wisconsin, and with their children grown—26-year-old Judd works in Washington, where 23-year-old Amelia is a first-year medical student at Georgetown University—Dr. Robertson and his wife were ready for a change when the Feinberg School position became available. While the family medicine department at the medical school is small, with only three faculty members and two staff members, Dr. Robertson's position includes serving as chair of family medicine at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, comprising Evanston, Glenbrook, and Highland Park Hospitals, where clinical family physicians and family medicine residents total close to 30.

In addition to recruiting more faculty members to the medical school and building a research program, Dr. Robertson's goals include increasing the number of family physicians teaching in the medical curriculum and creating strong relationships with family medicine clinics in the community. He has already accomplished a great deal in that regard, meeting with the leadership of Chicago Family Health Centers, Erie Family Health Centers, and the Alivio Clinic---all federally qualified health centers for the underserved—to understand what issues they face and how the department might help.

Faculty members Drs. Elizabeth Ryan (left) and Mari Egan update Dr. Robertson on programs under development.

One of the greatest challenges facing the specialty is a decrease in the number of students entering family medicine residencies, a trend with especially worrisome ramifications today. Says Dr. Robertson, "We are on the cusp of the Baby Boom generation retiring, when a huge cadre of people are going to need generalist physicians to care for them. We're simply not training them in adequate numbers to meet the demand."

A driving force in students not choosing family medicine may be that they graduate with tremendous debt and opt for higher paying specialties, suggests Dr. Robertson. Although he can do nothing to impact their debt load, Dr. Robertson does feel he can help by sharing his love of family medicine with the students he meets and hoping they might be drawn to the specialty as well.

"I see a patient in the context of a 15-minute visit but may have known them for 15 years. A wonderful chemistry develops and sharing occurs when you've known your patients for such a long time," he relates. "It's a transcending experience that goes far beyond just the provision of medical care."

Dr. Robertson's interests outside of work include reading—he and his wife are members of a couples book club—and travel. He lived for two years in Spain as a child and enjoys renewing old connections there and as of late has made trips to Punta Gorda, Belize, in Central America. Dr. Robertson is president of the board of the philanthropic Hillside Healthcare International, which has established a health clinic there to serve area residents. Last year more than 80 medical students from the United States, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom rotated through the clinic.

Living walking distance from the medical school, Dr. Robertson and his wife enjoy taking in the visual feast that is Chicago architecture. As they marvel at the buildings before them, they are excited to build their new lives in the Windy City.