Dr. Henry L. Dorkin '70, a cum laude graduate of Lehigh University, was elected president-elect of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Dorkin, of Boston Children’s Hospital, will serve a one-year term as president-elect, a role that will require him to serve a prestigious one-year term as one of the three top officers of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

During his time at Lehigh, he earned his B.S. in Chemistry from the College of Engineering. He was also a member of the National Engineering Honorary Society of Tau Beta Pi. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed his internship and residency in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1977, he moved to Massachusetts for a fellowship in pulmonary medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital.

The statewide association of physicians hosts over 25,000 members, and has been dedicated to educating and advocating for Massachusetts patients and doctors since 1781. As the oldest continuously operating medical society in the United States, the MMS remains a leader in continuing to improve medical education for physicians, students and other health care professionals.

Himself, Dorkin has been a member of the Medical Society since 1982 and has served as an important benefactor in various ways, both as vice president and as a member of the board of trustees. Previously, Dorkin served as president of the Suffolk District Medical Society. His service on the MMS has extended to multiple committees, including its finance and strategic planning operations.

However, Dorkin’s influence extends even beyond business and organizational decisions in the medical world outside of the hospital itself. To name just some of his responsibilities, Dorkin is the acting clinical chief of the Division of Respiratory Diseases, director of the Pulmonary Clinical Research Program, co-director of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Clinical Center and co-director of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutic Development Center, all at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Furthermore, Dorkin has dedicated an incredible amount of time to helping educate America’s medical students, and future physicians. In addition to the work he does for the MMS, he has also been an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School since 2002. Dorkin has lectured and presented at countless universities, such as Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Harvard as well as at national meetings of the AAP, ATS and CFF.

In 1981 he established the Division of Respiratory Diseases at the Tufts University School of Medicine and was its division chief until 2002 when he moved to the faculty of the Harvard Medical School. Additionally, Dorkin has conducted research and authored studies on a variety of topics about cystic fibrosis, pediatric and respiratory medicines. Today, he continues as a manuscript reviewer for a number of medical journals.

-Simona Galant '18 is a writer with the Dean's Office of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science.

Dr. Henry L. Dorkin '70 was named president-elect of the Massachusetts Medical Society in 2016. (Photo courtesy Henry Dorkin / Massachusetts Medical Society)