George Rodgers

Humana Foundation Chair in International Pediatrics

School of Medicine

George Rodgers, M.D., Ph.D. is a professor of pediatrics with a joint appointment in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. He is also chief of the University of Louisville Division of International Pediatrics and Associate Medical Director of the Kentucky Regional Poison Control Center, based at Kosair Children's Hospital.

Rodgers has been medical director of the International Pediatrics program since its founding in 1990. The program, originally conceived by Humana chairman emeritus David A. Jones, brings more than 200 foreign doctors and nurses to Louisville to train and sends Louisville medical professionals abroad. Once there, they help medical professionals in countries like Romania and Moldova improve their practice and rebuild their health care systems. The program has been funded by the Humana Foundation and David and Betty Jones. Each of them committed a $1 million endowment, matched by Bucks for Brains, to support the chair and provide some operational funding. All of the medical professionals who travel abroad and work with visiting doctors and nurses in Louisville donate their time to the program.

According to Jones, Rodgers is "a healer and the dearly beloved medical leader whose effective contributions are without number!"

Rodgers has published 15 books and book chapters, more than 55 peer-reviewed articles and has made more than 117 national and international presentations. He is on the editorial board of the journal Clinical Toxicology and is a reviewer for the Journal of Pediatrics, Pediatrics, Journal of the American Medical Association and the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

He was named Louisville Doctor of the Year-International in 2004 and was awarded honorary doctor of medicine degrees from the University of Sibiu and University of Bucharest in Romania in appreciation of his contributions to the medical field in that country.

Rodgers is a member of the Louisville Emergency Planning Committee, the National Research Council (National Academy of Sciences) Committee on Combined Exposures to Hydrogen Cyanide and Carbon Monoxide, the American Association of Poison Control Centers, the Committee on Pediatric Poisoning, the Centers for Disease Control Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning and the CDC Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Editorial Consultancy Committee.

He earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Yale University and completed a NATO postdoctoral fellowship. He earned his M.D. at the State University of New York and completed his residency in Pediatrics at the SUNY Upstate Medical Center.