Dr. Michael D Iseman

Michael Iseman is Professor of Medicine at the CU School of Medicine and National Jewish Health. He received a BA from Princeton followed by an MD from Columbia. He began his residence at Bellevue Hospital in New York, interrupted it for 2 years with the US Navy in Pearl Harbor, and then returned for senior residency and a fellowship in pulmonary medicine at the Harlem Hospital. He is board certified in internal medicine and pulmonary medicine.

Born in the small Midwestern city of Fremont, Neb., where his father was a local merchant and his mother a registered nurse, Iseman mastered every sport to which he ever applied his mind and body. He played baseball for Fremont High, varsity football and track at Princeton, and rugby and basketball at Columbia. He surfed in the Navy and took up skiing with a passion as soon as he moved to Colorado—not to mention the handball tournaments he won and the gold medal he helped the YOFRA/New Haven Rowing Club earn at the 1984 World's Veterans Championships in Belgium.

An All-American baseball player in high school, he received a personal phone call from the governor of the state asking him to stay home and play baseball for the University of Nebraska, a virtual stepping stone to the big leagues. But while Iseman would argue that sports is a wonderful training ground for the whole person, he had his eye on a wider field.

The inspiration to go into medicine came from his hometown doc who "helped put me back together every time I tore myself apart with some sports injury" and, consequently, "opened my eyes to the amazing power of this healing art." At Princeton, while already firmly committed to a career in medicine, a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity led him to major in history. He took his pre-medical requirements in summer school before applying to Columbia P&S. [Thanks to Columbia P&S Journal, 1997, for the preceding 3 paragraphs.]

In 1972 Mike came to Denver as an instructor in medicine at CU, and rose quickly to Professor of Medicine; he became chief of the clinical mycobacteriology service at National Jewish Health and was honored with the Girard & Madeleine Beno Chair in mycobacterial diseases. He has received numerous teaching, research and service awards, nationally and internationally, and has been visiting lecturer all over the world. He has many publications, scientific and clinical, as well as historical and philosophical.

Among a host of appointments he has been a member of the World Health Organization working group on multiple-drug resistant TB, the chair of the Scientific Assembly on TB of the American Thoracic Association, and president of the American Lung Association of Colorado. He was inducted into the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame, the New York Old Blue Rugby Hall of Fame, and the Colorado Pulmonary Hall of Fame. He was recognized as one of America's Top Doctors in 2012 by US News & World Report. He wrote the book on tuberculosis—literally: A Clinician's Guide to Tuberculosis (2000).