Burton I. Korelitz, MD, MACG
2016 Samuel S. Weiss Award Receipient
About Dr. Korelitz: Burton I. Korelitz, MD, MACG, was born in Boston and grew up in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He attended Duke University, but left for the Army in 1944 during World War II and then returned to graduate in 1947. At graduation from Boston University School of Medicine (AOA) in 1951, he received the Weinstein/Keefer Award for Internal Medicine.
Dr. Korelitz interned at Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York during which time he met his future wife, Ann. He returned to Boston for residency at the “new” Boston VA hospital, and became the first Fellow in Gastroenterology at the Beth Israel Hospital under Drs. Benjamin Banks and Louis Zetzel where he did research in inflammatory bowel disease. He was also awarded a Dana Fellowship at Harvard. He then returned to Mt. Sinai to become Chief Medical Resident, a Rosenstock Fellow, and later became an Attending Physician. In later years, he was honored with the Jacobi Medallion by the Mt. Sinai Alumni for achievement.
In the 1960s, he joined the medical staff at Lenox Hill Hospital, New York and became the Chief of Gastroenterology for the next 28 years. There he had the opportunity to teach hundreds of fellows in gastroenterology and medical residents who are now in academic gastroenterology or private practice all over the United States.
Dr. Korelitz has published more than 300 scientific papers and chapters on Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and is the editor of four textbooks. His research and publications served to encourage the use of immunosuppressive drugs in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease throughout the world. He has served as President of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. He has been honored with achievement awards from these organizations as well as the American Gastroenterological Association, the International Organization of Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Boston University School of Medicine.
For the past 12 years, he has served as Chief Emeritus and Director of Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Lenox Hill. He is also a Clinical Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine. Currently he remains in private practice and has a research grant from the New York Crohn’s Foundation and continues to publish original studies in inflammatory bowel disease.
Dr. Korelitz and his wife, Ann (a family therapist), live in New York City as do their daughters, Nina and Jean, two sons-in-law and four grandchildren.
About the Samuel S. Weiss Award: The Samuel S. Weiss Award was established as a service award in commemoration of the founding father of the ACG, Samuel S. Weiss, whose efforts and initiative resulted in the establishment of the College in 1932. It is presented periodically, and not necessarily annually, to a Fellow of the College in recognition of outstanding career service to the American College of Gastroenterology. Nominations are solicited and reviewed by the Awards Committee and the recipients must be approved by the ACG Board of Trustees.
Though this award is typically awarded to a single ACG member in any given year, the ACG Awards Committee and Board of Trustees has taken the extraordinary step of recognizing three leaders, who together worked to put into place important changes to the College’s administrative structure that enabled the spectacular growth and development of the College since the mid-1980s.