Fall 2000

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C. Anderson Aldrich
Dale Richmond

C. Anderson Aldrich Award

Dr. Abraham Bergman is the 2000 winner of the C. Anderson Aldrich Award. Dr. Bergman has had a long and distinguished career, and represents the best in pediatrics both in his service to children, the profession, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Abraham Bergman is chief of pediatrics at Harborview Medical Center and professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine where he has been since joining the UW faculty in 1964. A Seattle native, he graduated from Reed College in Portland in 1954 and received his medical degree from Western Reserve University in 1958. He was a pediatric resident at Boston Children’s Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital (London), and a Fellow in Pediatrics at the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. For 19 years he was director of outpatient services at Children’s Hospital and Medical Center prior to becoming the chief of pediatrics at Harborview.

Dr. Bergman has carried out research in the fields of child health manpower, child abuse, sudden infant death syndrome, and injury prevention. For over 30 years he has been an active practitioner of what he calls “political medicine”, defined as using the political process to improve the public’s health. On a national level he worked closely with former Senators Warren G. Magnuson and Henry M. Jackson in consumer protection, child accident prevention, and Indian health.

His activities in this area resulted in several important pieces of health legislation including the Flammable Fabrics Act in 1967, the Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970, the National Health Service Corps in 1972, the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Act of 1974, and the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (1976). He is the author of “The Discovery” of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Lessons in the Practice of Political Medicine, published by Praeger in 1986, and editor of “Twenty Common Problems in Pediatrics” (McGraw-Hill, 2000).

In 1985, Dr. Bergman founded the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center (HIPRC) devoted to research, education and prevention programs aimed at diminishing the personal impact of trauma and broadening the effectiveness of injury prevention and trauma treatment programs regionally and nationwide.

This has led to involvement in a variety of injury prevention issues including motorcycle and bicycle helmet usage, drunken driving, and pedestrian safety. He headed a bicycle helmet promotion campaign that raised usage rates among Seattle children from 3% to over 60% over a five year period. He is currently engaged in a project to improve the health services for foster children in Washington State.

Dr. Bergman has seven children, and two grandchildren. He and his wife, Suzanne Fiala, MD, recently adopted two boys, ages 6 and 3, from Russia.

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