MEET LOCAL LEGEND: Erica Frank, M.D.

BIOGRAPHY

Nominating Erica Frank to be a Local Legend, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA-5) said, simply and accurately, "She has shown exceptional energy as a physician and academic and is deserving of special recognition for her outstanding contributions to medicine."

Frank is a tenured Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. Following a transitional internship at the Cleveland Clinic, she was residency (Yale, 1990) and fellowship (Stanford, 1993) trained and board certified in preventive medicine. While primarily a researcher, she directs Emory's Preventive Medicine Residency Program and has an indigent clinical practice in cholesterol management.

Her major research theme is physicians' personal and clinical prevention habits. She is Principal Investigator of the Women Physicians' Health Study, a national questionnaire-based study of 4,501 women physicians and the first large study of their personal and professional characteristics, yielding more than fifty publications. Frank is also Principal Investigator of the "Healthy Doc - Healthy Patient" project, a national (18 medical school) study of the effect of encouraging medical students' healthy behaviors on their personal and clinical prevention habits. She is also beginning to work on a major project to put the entire medical school curriculum on the Web for free.

In addition to her achievements in research, she has extensive media and health education experience. She was Co-Editor in Chief of the journal Preventive Medicine (1994-1999), the Editor of the student component of JAMA, and has served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. She has written for Vogue magazine, was the health reporter for the central Georgia ABC affiliate, was a medical editor for Lifetime Medical Television, and was a health reporter for Medical News Network.

An active volunteer, she serves on the national boards of the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) and Physicians for Social Responsibility, and represents ACPM to the AMA House of Delegates (Alternate Delegate), and Emory to the AMA Section on Medical Schools. She is also involved in the environmental movement, and lives in an eco-sensitive co-housing home during the week, and a totally energy independent wilderness home on the weekends.

She has received a number of awards for her work. These include the AMA/Pettis Award (outstanding U.S. medical student communicator), ACPM's "Rising Star Award" (received the first year the award was offered), the Outstanding alumnus award from the Rollins School of Public Health, and ACPM's 1999 Best scientific presentation award.