Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center - Houston, Texas

VA Physician Receives Baylor College of Medicine's VA Distinguished Service Professorship
May 23, 2007

HOUSTON – Rabih O. Darouiche, M.D., staff physician in the Medical Care and Spinal Cord Injury Care Lines at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (MEDVAMC), received the VA Distinguished Service Professorship on May 17, 2007 by the Baylor College of Medicine Board of Trustees.

Darouiche is the founder and director of the Center for Prostheses Infection (CPI) at Baylor College of Medicine, and also the creator of the national Multidisciplinary Alliance Against Device-Related Infection (MADRI). He graduated from medical school at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon in 1984, and completed his internship, residency, and fellowship at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He is board certified in internal medicine, infectious disease, and spinal cord injury medicine.

"Dr. Darouiche is committed to providing state of the art, evidence-based care for our veterans with infectious diseases. An extremely talented physician, he is also dedicated to educating the next generation of leaders in spinal cord injury,” said Thomas B. Horvath, M.D., F.R.A.C.P., MEDVAMC chief of staff.

Darouiche wrote a review that appeared in the November 9, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine on the topic that infections in the space around the spinal cord have increased over the past decade and many are associated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

# # #