Harold C. Sox, M.D., Chair

Harold C. Sox, M.D. graduated from Stanford University (B.S. physics) and Harvard Medical School.   After serving as a medical intern and resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, he spent two years doing research in immunology at the National Institutes of Health and three years at Dartmouth Medical School, where he served as chief medical resident and began his studies of medical decision making.  He then spent fifteen years on the faculty of Stanford University School of Medicine, where he was the chief of the division of general internal medicine and director of ambulatory care at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center.  In 1988 he returned to Dartmouth where he served for thirteen years as Joseph M. Huber Professor of Medicine and chair of the department of medicine.  He became the Editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2001. 

Dr. Sox was the President of the American College of Physicians during 1998-1999.  He chaired the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from 1990 to 1995, the Institute of Medicine Committee to Study HIV Transmission through Blood Products, and the Institute of Medicine Committee on Health Effects Associated with Exposures Experienced in the Gulf War. He chaired the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee of the Center for Medicare Services from 1999 to 2003 and served on the Report Review Committee of the National Research Council from 2000 to 2005. He currently chairs the Institute of Medicine committee to set national priorities for Comparative Effectiveness Research.  He also chairs the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars Program and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making.   He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 1993 and to fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002.  His books include Medical Decision Making, Common Diagnostic Tests: Selection and Interpretation, and HIV and the Blood Supply: an Analysis of Crisis Decisionmaking.