Elmer Bernstam, MD, FACMI

Dr. Bernstam received Bachelors degrees in Biomedical Sciences and Psychology, and Computer Engineering, an MD and a Masters of Science in Engineering, all from the University of Michigan. After an internal medicine residency he matriculated as an NLM Fellow to the Medical Information Sciences program at Stanford and received his Masters degree in Informatics there. He joined the School of Health Information Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHSC) at Houston as an assistant professor. At the time of his election to the College he was an associate professor at UTHSC, with tenure, in health information sciences and internal medicine, and informatics director for the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences. Dr. Bernstam has performed research on the quality of health related information on the internet, including disease-specific information related to obesity, sleep apnea, breast cancer, and complementary and alternative medicine. He also led the writing and publication of a peer-reviewed position paper on behalf of all 24 then-funded CTSA programs that articulated the synergies and distinctions between informatics and information technology. He has undertaken research to improve the effectiveness of information retrieval from MEDLINE and investigated the functionality needed for veterinary electronic medical records. These academic achievements are recognized by his election to the College.