Rosenthal Named Chair of Department of Family Medicine At UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Thomas C. Rosenthal, M.D., associate professor of family medicine at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and a 1975 graduate of the UB medical school, has been named chair of the Department of Family Medicine.

Rosenthal had served as interim chair for the past year. A member of the department since 1978, he was instrumental in establishing the division of rural health, the medical school's rural health campus in Cuba, N.Y., and its residency program in rural health, one of four in the United States accredited to train physicians to practice in non-urban areas.

Through his initiative, UB was named a New York Rural Health Research Center in 1992, and in 1993 became one of five universities in the country designated as national rural health research centers.

He received the 1992 Distinguished Educator Award from the National Rural Health Association for his work in expanding and improving rural health care.

Rosenthal also was founding director of UB’s Primary Care Resource Center, headquarters for projects being implemented through the university’s primary-care initiative, a cooperative effort begun in 1992 to increase the number of UB medical school graduates entering primary-care practice.

Rosenthal’s interest in rural health stems from eight years as a family physician in the small farming community of Perry, N.Y. He established the practice in 1978 after completing a family-medicine residency at Deaconess Hospital, and left it in 1986 to become medical director of Buffalo General Hospital’s Department of Family Medicine. He was named director of UB’s family-medicine residency in 1987 and executive director of UB’s rural health programs in 1988. He is project director of a $1 million Generalist Physician Initiative grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, co-principal investigator of a $1.1 million federal grant to investigate rural-health policy issues, and co-principal investigator of a $250,000 federal grant to document rural health services for persons with HIV. He has published more than 25 papers on medical education and primary care.

A graduate of the State University of New York College at Geneseo, Rosenthal lives in Orchard Park.