Robert D. Patterson MD

Robert D. Patterson, MD (b. August 15, 1966) is an African-American physician, author, and community activist from Gary, Indiana. In 1988 he graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, IN. with a degree in Economics and Philosophy. Subsequently, he was awarded the Consortium Award for Graduate Study in Management and attended Indiana University in Bloomington, IN where he received an MBA with a concentration in Marketing in 1990. Upon graduation he accepted an opportunity to serve as a pharmaceutical sales representative with Eli Lilly and Company.

Patterson entered medical school in 2000 as the inaugural winner of the George H. Rawls, MD Scholarship at Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM). Patterson is an inaugural member of the IUSM’s Diversity Council and served two terms as president of the IUSM Student National Medical Association.

In 2004 he utilized these dual positions to create a Diversity Week celebration on the school’s campus which honors the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by focusing on minority heath care issues. Patterson’s accomplishments have attracted national attention. He was awarded the American Medical Association’s Student Leadership Award for 2003-2004 which acknowledges the twenty most gifted and energetic student leaders in the country. In addition, he was also awarded the Student National Medical Association’s Member of the Year award for 2003-2004 and the Journal of the National Medical Association’s Award of Journalistic Excellence in October of 2004, becoming the first student to be nationally recognized by all three major medical organizations in the same academic year.

Patterson is also the co-author, with his mentor Dr. George H. Rawls, of a book for students interested in careers in science and medicine entitled So You Want to be a Doctor: A Guide for the Student from High School through Retirement, which was released by Hilton Publishing in October of 2007. The book’s foreword was written by another mentor, the esteemed pediatric neurosurgeon responsible for the first successful separation of Siamese twins, Dr. Benjamin Carson of Johns Hopkins University.

While currently researching his next book exploring the African-American generation betweeen baby-boomers and generation X, he has written several articles for the Indianapolis Recorder newspaper and the national website Huffington Post.

In addition, Patterson is a public speaker whose topics include: cultural competency in healthcare, minorities in medicine, minority healthcare disparities, the Civil Rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Black History Month, African-American fatherhood, and the Obama presidential campaign and election.

Presently, he is a third-year resident in psychiatry at the University of Louisville Psychiatry Residency Program.

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