Newton resident Henry L. Dorkin, M.D. is elected President of the Massachusetts Medical Society

Waltham, Mass. – April 27 – Henry L. Dorkin, M.D. of Boston Children’s Hospital has been elected President of the Massachusetts Medical Society at the organization’s annual meeting April 27 at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. As President, he will serve a one-year term as the ranking officer of the Society, the statewide professional association of physicians with more than 25,000 members.

Dr. Dorkin is Director of the Pulmonary Clinical Research Program, Co-Director of the Cystic Fibrosis Clinical Center, and Co-Director of the Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutic Development Center, all at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is also the Immediate Past Clinical Chief of the Division of Respiratory Diseases (2008-16) and the Cystic Fibrosis Center (2010-15), both at Children’s. A former Professor of Pediatrics at the Tufts University School of Medicine, he is currently Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, a position he has held since 2002.

A member of the medical society since 1982, Dr. Dorkin has served the society in a number of capacities. He was President-Elect from 2016-2017 and Vice President from 2015-2016; he has served as Chair of the Task Force on EHR Interoperability and Usability and as a member of the Task Force on Opioid Therapy and Physician Communication.

Dr. Dorkin has served as a member on the Board of Trustees, the Organized Medical Staff Section, and the Committees on Preparedness, Legislation, and Membership Services. He also serves as a member ex-officio on many other MMS committees, including Finance, Strategic Planning, Quality of Medical Practice, Information Technology, and Publications. He is a Past President of the Suffolk District Medical Society.

In addition to his clinical responsibilities at Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. Dorkin has held several voluntary positions with local, regional, and national medical and health organizations. He is a past Chair of the Section on Pulmonology of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and a Past Chair of the Center Committee of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). He is currently a member of the Pediatric Assembly of the American Thoracic Society (ATS), AAP Pulmonology Section and the CFF National Medical Advisory Council. He has been on the CFF Professional Education Committee since 1991 and is currently its Chairman, a position he has held for over 20 years.

Dr. Dorkin’s teaching and practice activities have included lectures and presentations at multiple academic institutions, as well as national meetings of the AAP, ATS and CFF. He has authored or co-authored 100 articles, chapters and abstracts on respiratory disease topics. He continues as an ad hoc reviewer for several journals including the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Dorkin established the Division of Pediatric Respiratory Diseases at the Tufts University School of Medicine in 1981 and was its Division Chief until 2002 when he moved to the faculty of Harvard Medical School.

A cum laude graduate of the College of Engineering, Lehigh University, he holds a B.S. in Chemistry and membership in Tau Beta Pi, the National Engineering Honorary Society. Dr. Dorkin earned his M.D. at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed his internship and residency in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He then moved to Massachusetts in 1977 for a Fellowship in pulmonary medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. With his wife Kathleen, Dr. Dorkin resides in Newton. Their daughter, Dr. Molly Dorkin, is an art historian in London, England, and their son, Dr. Robert Dorkin, is a molecular biologist with a Cambridge biotechnology company.

The Massachusetts Medical Society, with some 25,000 physicians and student members, is dedicated to educating and advocating for the patients and physicians of Massachusetts. The Society, under the auspices of NEJM Group, publishes the New England Journal of Medicine, a leading global medical journal and web site, and Journal Watch alerts and newsletters covering 13 specialties. The Society is also a leader in continuing medical education providing accredited and certified activities across the globe for physicians and other health care professionals. Founded in 1781, MMS is the oldest continuously operating medical society in the country. For more information please visit www.massmed.org, www.nejm.org, or www.jwatch.org.