Addiction recovery pioneer Dodd mourned
David T. Dodd, M.D., who worked with impaired physicians across Tennessee, died Dec. 18, 2010, in Murfreesboro, Tenn. He was 83.
Vanderbilt's Center for Professional Health, which Dr. Dodd helped develop, helps Vanderbilt train physicians with behavioral problems in the United States and Canada.
David T. Dodd, M.D.
Dr. Dodd, associate professor of Psychiatry, was one of the first physicians credentialed in addiction medicine in the United States and developed the intervention strategies to help physicians enter treatment for addiction.
“Devoted doesn't even begin to describe David Dodd,” said W. Anderson Spickard Jr., M.D., professor of Medicine, emeritus, who was one of the co-founders of the Center for Professional Health.
“I can't tell you what he meant to physicians, those recovering and those not. This man saved the lives of many physicians. I patterned all the work I did from him. “He was the ultimate role model for all of us,” Spickard said.
In 1983, Dr. Dodd became medical director of the Tennessee Medical Association's Impaired Physicians Program.
The TMA program, through Dr. Dodd, helped rehabilitate thousands of physicians impaired by chemical dependency or suffering from mental illness.
He was also instrumental in forming the Federation of State Physician Health Programs, a national organization dedicated to physician health.
He is survived by his wife, Nancy, four children and eight grandchildren.