Dr. Eli Friedman to receive lifetime achievement award in hemodialysis
SUNY Downstate professor for 50 years
Eli A. Friedman, MD, distinguished teaching professor of medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in Hemodialysis (HD), February 8, at the Thirty-fourth Annual Conference on Dialysis, presented by the University of Missouri School of Medicine, at a ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia.
A Brooklyn native, Dr. Friedman received a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Brooklyn College and received his medical degree from SUNY Downstate. He then spent four years at Harvard University’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital as an intern, resident, and nephrology fellow, learning the then new specialty of nephrology and transplant immunology. As a lieutenant commander in the United States Public Health Service, Dr. Friedman was recruited to the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), based in Atlanta, Georgia, with an appointment as assistant professor of medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine.
In 1963, Dr. Friedman returned to Downstate as assistant professor of medicine, where he established the first federally funded hemodialysis center linked to an organ (kidney) transplant facility in the United States. His hemodialysis patients at Downstate’s neighboring affiliate, Kings County Hospital Center, formed the American Association of Kidney Patients, for which he served as chair of the Medical Advisory Board.
Dr. Friedman has been president of the American and International Societies for Artificial Organs, and has received honorary memberships from kidney societies in Belgium, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, and Yugoslavia. In 2003, Dr. Friedman was elected president of the International Society for Geriatric Nephrology and Urology. He is the author of 530 scientific publications, which includes the editing of eleven books.