New Friends and Collaborators from the Lown Institute: Meet David Klemperer

Opening Reception, Lown Institute 2015

Opening Reception, Lown Institute 2015

The 2015 Lown Institute Conference was a wonderful opportunity to meet people I’ve been citing or communicating with about critical issues in health care and biomedicine for some time. It was also a chance to meet new friends and potential collaborators on this road to right care.

At the opening reception I met David Klemperer, a general internist, public health specialist, and Professor of Social Medicine and Public Health at the University of Applied Sciences Regensburg. He’s written a textbook on Social Medicine, Public Health, and Health Sciences (in German). His publications (some in English) are available for download here.

David first learned about the Lown conference after meeting the Institute’s president, Vikas Saini MD, in 2013 at the first Preventing Overdiagnosis Conference on “Winding Back the Harms of Too Much Medicine.” David gave a talk about regional variations in healthcare that Saini attended, and it just made sense that David would be invited to attend the 2nd annual Lown Institute conference, aimed at catalyzing a grassroots movement for transforming healthcare systems and improving the health of communities. David takes what he learns at these gatherings back to a community of physicians, patients, nurses, and epidemiologists in Germany who are also working on evidence based medicine and using quality indicators to advance health, reduce medical harm and overuse, and involve patients in meaningful ways. In fact, after the Lown conference David was headed directly to the annual meeting of the German Network for Evidence Based Medicine to participate in two workshops there.

David Klemperer at the Mexican border, 2015.

David Klemperer at the Mexican border, 2015.

When I asked David what he liked most about San Diego, he said, “Meeting wonderful people at the conference and the warm sunny weather – it is cold here in Germany.” He enjoyed the sun, took in the sights, went to the Mexican border, and joined a group of us for tacos at the Blind Burro on 7th and J streets.

I loved meeting my new German friend, David Klemperer, and I look forward to seeing him in September at the 2015 Preventing Overdiagnosis conference hosted by the National Cancer Institute. No doubt, many of my colleagues and collaborators committed to transforming the health care system will be there.

For more on the happenings at the Lown Institute conference, you can follow the Twitter activity at the hashtags #Lown2015 and #pinkribbonblues.

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