Carol Berkowitz, MD

The Ray E. Helfer Society Awards Dr. Carol Berkowitz Its Highest Honor

Carol BerkowitzCarol Berkowitz, M.D. FAAP, FACEP, currently Executive Vice Chair in the Department of Pediatrics at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, was presented with the 2014 Ray E. Helfer Award at the society’s Annual Meeting in April. The Helfer Society is an honorary association of child abuse physicians from across America and around the world who are leaders in the field of child maltreatment. Annually, the society selects a member for recognition of his or her distinguished contributions in the field.

Dr. Berkowitz graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and did her pediatric residency at the Roosevelt hospital in New York. She is a Past President of the American Academy of Pediatrics and also served in numerous other national leadership positions including President of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association (APA, now the Academic Pediatric Association), President of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors (APPD), Chair of the Residency Review Committee (RRC) for Pediatrics, Chair of the Council of RRC Chairs, President of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS). She has served on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) and the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). She is a delegate from the AAP to the AMA and serves on the AMA’s Council on Medical Education.

She is a general pediatrician who is also Board-certified in Pediatric Emergency Medicine and in Child Abuse Pediatrics. Her interests have focused on women in medicine, medical education, pediatric emergency medicine and child maltreatment. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Joseph W. St. Geme Jr. Leadership Award, and in 2007, she received the Abraham Jacobi Memorial Award, an acknowledgement by both the AAP and the AMA of her numerous contributions to the health and well-being of children and to the pediatric community. She is the author of several hundred articles and book chapters and is the editor of Berkowitz’s Pediatrics: A Primary Care Approach, a textbook now in press for its 5th edition.

Dr. Ray Helfer was a pioneer in the field at a time when child abuse was commonly unrecognized or ignored. He researched the root causes of abuse and neglect and taught extensively on how to recognize, address and prevent child maltreatment. His approach to this medical and societal problem was to involve multidisciplinary teams of medical, mental health and social service professionals. Cases of child abuse and neglect are now routinely handled in this way. He wrote several books including “The Battered Child” (University of Chicago, 1968) and “Helping the Battered Child and His Family” (Lippincott, 1972), which are considered classics on the subject. of Chair, Child Abuse and Neglect.