Dr. Roger J. Zoorob
Zoorob to head Family Medicine programs in Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance
Dr. Roger J. Zoorob, has been named the director of Family Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Frank S. Royal Sr. Professor and Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Meharry. He will also serve as the co-director of the Vanderbilt-Meharry Institute for Inter Community Health.
Zoorob comes from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans where he has served as associate chair for Academic Affairs and Research for the Department of Family Medicine and director of the Family Practice Residency Training Program at Kenner Regional Medical Center.
“I am very excited about this position and look forward to coming to Nashville,” Zoorob said. “What attracted me were the joint appointment, the alliance between Vanderbilt and Meharry, and the fact that both institutions are strong in both education and research.”
In his position, Zoorob will oversee the educational programs in the Department of Family Medicine, coordinate the family medicine fourt- year ambulatory clerkship at Meharry, in which Vanderbilt medical students participate, and help arrange and evaluate student electives in family medicine in rural settings. He will also mentor medical students who are contemplating careers in family medicine.
Zoorob, who is a diplomat of the American Board of Family Medicine, will assume the position on Jan. 5. He received his medical degree and a Masters in Public Health from American University of Beirut and completed his residency training in Family Medicine at Anderson Memorial Hospital in South Carolina, where he received the outstanding resident award.
After establishing a family practice in rural Ohio, he completed a Faculty Development Fellowship at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. While at UK, he served as the associate director of the residency program. He was recruited to LSU-New Orleans in 1996 to start a joint residency program at Kenner Regional Medical at LSU.
“We are very excited about the recruitment of Dr. Zoorob to both Meharry and Vanderbilt,” said Dr. Steven G. Gabbe, dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
“He has extensive experience in academic and family medicine and as an active practitioner. He has held leadership positions in family medicine in Louisiana and is active in family practice programs on a national level, including the development of practice guidelines and efforts to improve quality of care.”
Zoorob said he looks forward to participating in the education of both Vanderbilt and Meharry students, and in the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance. “We will expose our students to a wide range of areas of family medicine, including providing electives in both urban and rural areas. There is a shortage of family medicine physicians in the rural areas of Tennessee,” he said.
Zoorob’s research interests include using behavior modification and health services research in the areas of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia.