John George Keilp, PHD

Dr. Prager is Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of Clinical Ethics and Chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee at Columbia University Medical Center. He spent two years in the Indian health Service practicing general medicine on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota after his medical internship. Dr. Prager held clandestine medical clinics in the Soviet Union during a visit to Refuseniks in 1986, and later set up the first U.S. - Soviet medical student exchange program between Columbia P&S and the First Moscow Medical Academy. Dr. Prager has been a pulmonologist for over 35 years. He is heavily involved in teaching pulmonology and medical ethics to medical students, house officers and nurses. His writings on medicine and medical ethics have appeared in medical journals and textbooks as well as on the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Prager is a regular guest lecturer in Israel for the Ben Gurion University MD Program in International Health and Medicine in collaboration with Columbia University Health Sciences. He has received honors for his teaching, clinical expertise, contributions to organ donation, and medical humanism.

Dr. Devlin is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Associate Director of the Eating Disorders Research Unit at New York State Psychiatric Institute. He attended medical school at Columbia and completed his psychiatry residency at New York State Psychiatric Institute/Columbia-Presbyterian. Following his residency, he joined the Eating Disorders Research Unit at NYSPI under the direction of Dr.Tim Walsh, and he has worked with patients with eating disorders and conducted clinical research there since that time. His major academic interest is in the treatment of patients with eating disorders, and he recently completed work on an NIMH-funded study of psychotherapy and medication treatment for overweight patients with binge eating disorder. An additional area of interest is in the relationship between eating disorders and the outcome of surgery for obesity. In addition to research, he is active in medical student education and in training and supervision of psychiatry residents, particularly in cognitive behavioral therapy. He served on the American Psychiatric Association Practice Guideline Work Group on Eating Disorders. He is an active member of the Academy for Eating Disorders and is a past President of that organization.

Email: dns1@cumc.columbia.edu