Jim Kim
Encyclopedia
Jim Yong Kim is a Korean-American
physician
, and 17th President
of Dartmouth College
. He has been a Professor of Medicine and Social Medicine
and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine
at Harvard Medical School. He was a co-founder and later Executive Director of Partners in Health
along with Paul Farmer
, Todd McCormack, Thomas J. White and Ophelia Dahl
. On March 2, 2009, Kim was named the 17th President of Dartmouth College
, a position he formally assumed on July 1, 2009. Kim is the first Asian-American to assume the post of president at an Ivy League
institution.
From 2004 to 2006, Kim served as Director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department, a post he was appointed to in March 2004 after serving as advisor to the WHO Director General. Kim oversaw all of the WHO’s work related to HIV/AIDS, focusing on initiatives to help developing countries scale up their treatment, prevention, and care programs, including the “3x5” initiative designed to put three million people in developing countries on AIDS treatment by the end of 2005.
An expert in tuberculosis, Kim has chaired or served on a number of committees on international TB policy. He has conducted extensive research into effective and affordable strategies for treating strains of TB that are resistant to standard drugs. While at WHO, Kim was responsible for coordinating HIV efforts with the TB department.
, a joint initiative of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Social Medicine and the Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. The global health field case studies produced by this project form the core of a new global health delivery curriculum now taught at Harvard School of Public Health. Kim’s team has also developed a web-based “community of practice”, GHDonline.org, to allow practitioners around the world to easily access information, share expertise, and engage in real-time problem solving. Kim is on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund
proposal.
, South Korea
in 1959, Jim Yong Kim moved with his family to the U.S. at the age of five and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa
. His father, a Dentist, also taught Dentistry at the University of Iowa
, where his mother received her Ph.D. in philosophy. Kim attended Muscatine High School
, where he was valedictorian and president of his class, and played both quarterback for the football team and point guard on the basketball team. He graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. from Brown University
in 1982. He was awarded an M.D. from Harvard Medical School
in 1991, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Department of Anthropology, in 1993. He was among the first enrollees of Harvard's experimental MD/PhD program in the social sciences. He is actively involved in a variety of sports, including basketball, volleyball, tennis, and golf. Kim, who is married to Younsook Lim, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital Boston
, has two children, a son, Thomas, who was born in 2000, and a second son who was born on February 27, 2009, a few days before the announcement of Kim's presidency at Dartmouth College.
Korean American
Korean Americans are Americans of Korean descent, mostly from South Korea, with a small minority from North Korea...
physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, and 17th President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
. He has been a Professor of Medicine and Social Medicine
Social medicine
The field of social medicine seeks to:# understand how social and economic conditions impact health, disease and the practice of medicine and# foster conditions in which this understanding can lead to a healthier society....
and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine
Social medicine
The field of social medicine seeks to:# understand how social and economic conditions impact health, disease and the practice of medicine and# foster conditions in which this understanding can lead to a healthier society....
at Harvard Medical School. He was a co-founder and later Executive Director of Partners in Health
Partners In Health
Partners In Health is a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the poor". It was founded in 1987 by Dr. Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White, Todd McCormack, and Dr...
along with Paul Farmer
Paul Farmer
Dr. Paul Edward Farmer is an American anthropologist and physician. He is currently the Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard University, formerly the Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an attending physician and Chief...
, Todd McCormack, Thomas J. White and Ophelia Dahl
Ophelia Dahl
Ophelia Magdalena Dahl is an Anglo-American social justice and health care advocate.As of January 2008, Dahl is the president and executive director of Partners In Health , a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the...
. On March 2, 2009, Kim was named the 17th President of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, a position he formally assumed on July 1, 2009. Kim is the first Asian-American to assume the post of president at an Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
institution.
Past endeavors
Kim has 20 years of experience in improving health in developing countries. He is a founding trustee and the former executive director of Partners In Health, a not-for-profit organization that supports a range of health programs in poor communities in Haiti, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi and the United States.From 2004 to 2006, Kim served as Director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department, a post he was appointed to in March 2004 after serving as advisor to the WHO Director General. Kim oversaw all of the WHO’s work related to HIV/AIDS, focusing on initiatives to help developing countries scale up their treatment, prevention, and care programs, including the “3x5” initiative designed to put three million people in developing countries on AIDS treatment by the end of 2005.
An expert in tuberculosis, Kim has chaired or served on a number of committees on international TB policy. He has conducted extensive research into effective and affordable strategies for treating strains of TB that are resistant to standard drugs. While at WHO, Kim was responsible for coordinating HIV efforts with the TB department.
Recent work
Over the past few years, Kim has been involved in the development of a new field focused on improving the implementation and delivery of global health interventions. He believes that progress in developing more effective global health programs has been hindered by the paucity of large-scale systematic approaches to improving program design. This new field will rigorously gather, analyze, and widely disseminate a comprehensive body of practical, actionable insights on effective global health delivery. In order to develop this field, Kim co-founded the Global Health Delivery ProjectGlobal Health Delivery Project
The Global Health Delivery Project is a project at Harvard University that aims to improve health among disadvantaged populations worldwide by systematizing the study of global health delivery and rapidly disseminating knowledge to practitioners. GHD was founded in 2007 by Dr. Jim Yong Kim, Dr....
, a joint initiative of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Social Medicine and the Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. The global health field case studies produced by this project form the core of a new global health delivery curriculum now taught at Harvard School of Public Health. Kim’s team has also developed a web-based “community of practice”, GHDonline.org, to allow practitioners around the world to easily access information, share expertise, and engage in real-time problem solving. Kim is on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund
Health Impact Fund
The Health Impact Fund is a proposed mechanism that would provide a market-based solution to problems concerning the development and distribution of medicines. It would incentivize the research and development of new pharmaceutical products that make substantial reductions in the global burden of...
proposal.
Personal life
Born in SeoulSeoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
in 1959, Jim Yong Kim moved with his family to the U.S. at the age of five and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa
Muscatine, Iowa
Muscatine is a city in Muscatine County, Iowa, United States. The population was 22,886 in the 2010 census, an increase from 22,697 in the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Muscatine County...
. His father, a Dentist, also taught Dentistry at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
, where his mother received her Ph.D. in philosophy. Kim attended Muscatine High School
Muscatine High School
Muscatine High School is a four-year comprehensive high school located in Muscatine, Iowa. The school is part of the Muscatine Community School District, and has an enrollment of approximately 1,700 students in grades nine through twelve....
, where he was valedictorian and president of his class, and played both quarterback for the football team and point guard on the basketball team. He graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. from Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
in 1982. He was awarded an M.D. from Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
in 1991, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Department of Anthropology, in 1993. He was among the first enrollees of Harvard's experimental MD/PhD program in the social sciences. He is actively involved in a variety of sports, including basketball, volleyball, tennis, and golf. Kim, who is married to Younsook Lim, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital Boston
Children's Hospital Boston
Children's Hospital Boston is a 396-licensed bed children's hospital in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area of Boston, Massachusetts.At 300 Longwood Avenue, Children's is adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical School, and to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute...
, has two children, a son, Thomas, who was born in 2000, and a second son who was born on February 27, 2009, a few days before the announcement of Kim's presidency at Dartmouth College.
Publications
- Farmer Paul E, Kim JY. Community-based approaches to the control of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: Introducing “DOTS-plus”. British Medical Journal 1998; 317:671-4.
- Becerra MC, Bayona J, Freeman J, Farmer PE, Kim JY. Redefining MDR-TB transmission “hot spots.” International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 2000; 4(5):387-94.
- Farmer Paul, Leandre F, Mukherjee JS, Claude M, Nevil P, Smith-Fawzi MC, Koenig SP, Castro A, Becerra MC, Sachs J, Attaran A, Kim JY. Community-based approaches to HIV treatment in resource-poor settings. Lancet 2001; 358(9279):404-9.
- Farmer Paul, Leandre F, Mukherjee J, Gupta R, Tarter L, Kim JY. Community-based treatment of advanced HIV disease: Introducing DOT-HAART (Directly Observed therapy with highly active antiretroviral therapy). Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2001; 79(12):1145-51.
- Mitnick C, Bayona J, Palacios E, Shin S, Furin J, Alcántara F, Sánchez E, Sarria M, Becerra M, Fawzi MCS, Kapiga S, Neuberg D, Maguire JH, Kim JY, Farmer PE. Community-based therapy for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Lima, Peru. New England Journal of Medicine 2003; 348(2):119-28.
- Gupta Raj, Irwin A, Raviglione MC, Kim JY. Scaling up treatment for HIV/AIDS: Lessons learned from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Lancet 2004; 363(9405):320-4.
- Kim Jim Yong, Farmer P. AIDS in 2006 — Moving toward one world, one hope? New England Journal of Medicine 2006; 355:645-7.
- Kim Jim Yong. Unexpected political immunity to AIDS. Lancet 2006; 368(9534):441-2.
- Kim Jim Yong. A lifelong battle against disease. U.S. News and World Report 2007; 143(18):62-4.
- Kim Jim Yong. Toward a Golden Age- Reflections on Global Health and Social Justice. Harvard International Review 2007; 29 (2): 20-25.
- Kim Jim Yong, Farmer Paul. Surgery and Global Health: A View from Beyond the OR. World Journal of Surgery 2008; 32(4): 533–6.
- Kim Jim Yong, Millen JV, A Irwin, J Gershman (eds.). Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2000.
- Jain Sachin H, Weintraub R, Rhatigan J, Porter ME, Kim JY. Delivering Global Health. Student British Medical Journal 2008; 16:27.http://archive.student.bmj.com/issues/08/06/editorials/227.php
- Kim Jim Yong, Rhatigan J, Jain SH, Weintraub R, Porter ME. From a declaration of values to the creation of value in global health: a report from Harvard University's Global Health Delivery Project. Glob Public Health. 2010 Mar;5(2):181-8.