Robert Einterz, MD, was awarded Emeritus status upon his retirement from the Indiana University School of Medicine and IU Center or Global Health on January 31, 2020.
Dr. Einterz was one of the four IU physicians who established the partnership with Moi University and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kenya that has become the AMPATH partnership. He served as the first full-time IU medical team leader in Kenya in 1990 and was the founding director of the IU Center for Global Health. Einterz also served as the Donald E. Brown Professor of Global Health and Associate Dean for Global Health.
Under his leadership, AMPATH received an initial $65 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to create one of Africa’s largest, most comprehensive and effective HIV care and control programs in the early 2000s. Today, the AMPATH partnership provides HIV care for more than 150,000 Kenyans. Working with the Kenyan Ministry of Health, the healthcare system developed to address the pandemic is transitioning to a population health model inclusive of non-communicable and chronic diseases and serves a population of 8 million people.
Einterz received the President's Medal for Excellence from IU President Michael A. McRobbie late last year. "Dr. Einterz is one of the visionary founders of AMPATH, the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare, a groundbreaking program that has transformed -- and saved -- many lives," McRobbie said in presenting the award. "Under Dr. Einterz's outstanding leadership, AMPATH has expanded beyond its original focus on HIV and AIDS to provide more comprehensive care to people in Western Kenya."
Einterz serves on the advisory board for the Fogarty International Center, a division of the National Institutes of Health, and is a strong advocate for bidirectional educational opportunities for health care trainees in developed and developing countries.
“Over the past three decades, Dr. Einterz and his colleagues have demonstrated how North American medical schools can successfully work in partnership with host countries to provide high-quality care, train local health care providers, and address poverty, hunger and other factors that contribute to poor health,” said IU School of Medicine Dean Jay L. Hess, MD, PhD, MHSA, who is also IU’s executive vice president for university clinical affairs.
Einterz completed his medical training, residency and fellowship at Indiana University School of Medicine and is an author on multiple articles related to health care system development in low- and middle-income countries, the power of academic health partnerships, electronic medical records and global health education. He is the principal investigator of numerous grants including projects funded by the Gates Foundation, the MTCT-Plus Initiative, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
The awarding of Emeritus status at Indiana University is an honor, designating a retired faculty member as having led a distinguished professorial career and made significant contributions to the university.
