The Department of Medicine is honored announce the promotion of Paul S. Richman, M.D. to Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine. Dr. Richman has been an esteemed faculty member at Stony Brook University for 19 years.
Read Dr. Richman's inspiring medical journey, in his own words:
"I grew up in a family of orthopedic surgeons with military experience. At age 11 my father took me into the OR to observe an ORIF of a long-bone spiral fracture, in the hopes I would follow in his footsteps. I fainted and was caught by the scrub nurse. While I admired my dad’s skill with his hands, Orthopedics was clearly not going to be my specialty. Even a career in medicine seemed a reach. But a stint as a bartender in New Orleans convinced me that medicine would be a better career path after all. I found a direction for my career during residency training at Baltimore City Hospital. There, our ICU attending physicians from Johns Hopkins expected us to learn how to manage a patient on mechanical ventilation independently. This was pretty exciting (for me, not the patients) and critical care medicine seemed like it would be stimulating and fun. I never lost this feeling.
"I trained in pulmonary/ICU in San Diego under the renowned Dr. Kenneth Moser, a brilliant academician, kind person and inveterate smoker. From there, I took at position at Temple University where I spent 4 years doing research on therapy of ARDS. In 1992, I emigrated to Israel where I practiced for a decade at a large community hospital in Afula, an agricultural region with a community of kibbutzim and small Arab villages. The medical staff at Afula Hospital represented these two populations working together in peace.
"As part of the ICU department at Afula Hospital, I opened a pulmonary consultative practice, bronchoscopy service and PFT lab with the help of Dr. Amiram Lev, the president of the Israeli Intensive Care Society and my most important mentor. The pulmonary division consisted of myself, another part time physician and a nurse. It was very much a DIY operation, and was a transformative experience. In Israel I met my second wife, an anesthesiologist with whom I share 5 wonderful children.
"I now feel very privileged to have spent the last 19 years working with terrific colleagues in the pulmonary/critical care medicine division at Stony Brook University. Here, I’ve taken my greatest reward from the teaching of medical students and residents, who are a continual source of inspiration to me."
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Richman on his illustrious career that led him to this honor. We thank him for his outstanding contributions to his division, our department and our institution, and we wish him continued success in his future endeavors.
