Aagaard Tower dedication and Aagaard Lecture May 24

Osborn

Dedication of the Aagaard Tower (the Health Sciences Center’s BB tower) will open this year’s George and Lorna Aagaard Lecture on Medicine and Society on Monday, May 24. The event begins at 4 p.m. in Hogness Auditorium of the Health Sciences Center.

Dr. June Osborn will give the Aagaard Lecture, speaking on “Where Do We Stand With the Twin Epidemics of HIV/AIDS and Substance Abuse?” Osborn, an expert on infectious disease and public health policy, has been president of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation in New York City since 1996.

Dr. Paul G. Ramsey, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, will open the Aagaard Tower dedication program, which will include comments by Dr. David Dale, dean of medicine from 1982 to 1986 and now professor of medicine, and historical photo slides.

Dr. George Aagaard, who died in 1997, was dean of the School of Medicine from 1954 until 1964, and a member of the faculty until his death. Lorna Aagaard, a longtime volunteer for the medical school, UW Medical Center and the Health Sciences Center, plans to attend the dedication ceremony, along with other members of the Aagaard family.

This photo of George and Lorna Aagaard was taken in the mid-1980s in his office.

The lecture will immediately follow the dedication. Osborn will be introduced by Dr. Robert G. Petersdorf, distinguished professor of medicine.

Since the early 1970s she has been an advisor on virology, infectious diseases and vaccines, health care, public health and public policy for a number of federal agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the World Health Organization. She has also worked with private foundations, including chairing the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s AIDS Health Services Project.

Osborn earned a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and an M.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1961. She was a pediatric resident at Boston Children’s and Massachusetts General hospitals and then a fellow in virology and infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins and the University of Pittsburgh.

She was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin from 1966 to 1984, when she became dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine, serving on its governing council, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

From 1989-93 she chaired the U.S. National Commission on AIDS, and she is currently chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the HIV Cost and Services Utilization Study coordinated by the Rand Corp. In addition she serves on federal advisory councils on substance abuse and vaccines and now chairs Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy, based at Brown University, a group attempting to bring a medical voice to policy on substance abuse. ¶