Healthcare: Reclaiming the Patient-Doctor Relationship

Guest Bio: Stephen C. Schimpff, MD

Dr. Stephen Schimpff is the retired Chief Executive Officer of the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Dr. Schimpff, an Eagle Scout, is a 1963 graduate of Rutgers University where he was a Henry Rutgers Scholar. He was also recipient of the Van Der Poole Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry. He obtained his M.D. degree in 1967 at Yale University Medical School and was inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha, the national medical honor society. His internal medicine internship and residency was at Yale-New Haven Hospital (1967-1969).  He was a Clinical Associate in the Baltimore Cancer Research Center (BCRC) of the National Cancer Institute from 1969-1972. He was a Fellow in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, from 1972-1973. 

He is Board certified in Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Schimpff was Senior Investigator in the National Cancer Institute’s BCRC from 1973 to1982. In 1976 he became Head, Section of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the BCRC and from 1979 was, concurrently, Head, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.He became internationally recognized for his research into the causes, prevention and treatment of infection in cancer patients undergoing aggressive cancer therapy. He has published over 200 scientific articles, reviews and book chapters and has edited three text books, including Comprehensive Textbook of Oncology. Clinically he devoted most of his time to treating patients with acute leukemia and lymphomas and leading a program of infectious diseases for the Cancer Center. 

Dr. Schimpff served as a member of the boards of the Maryland Hospital Education Institute; the American Cancer Society, Maryland Division (President from 1990-1992); Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations (Chairman, Board of Directors from 1994-1997); the Maryland Hospital Association Board of Directors (1998- 2003); the Easter Seals Society of Maryland (Vice Chairman 1991-1992) and with his wife was co-leader of a Girl Scout Troop in Columbia, Maryland. Dr Schimpff has been married to Carol Rawstrom Schimpff for 52 years. Mrs. Schimpff is a retired architect and commercial real estate pension advisor; after retirement she was a docent for 15 years at the Walters Art Museum. Both volunteer at the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Canaan Valley, West Virginia. Their daughter, Elizabeth, is a CFA and former vice president of credit analysis at Merrill Lynch’s Tokyo office; she, her husband Brian and sons Ben and Bruno reside in Los Angeles.