William Clifford Roberts, MD: An Interview by W. Bruce Fye, MD

Abstract

Bill Roberts (Figure ​(Figure11) was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 11, 1932, and he grew up there. In 1954, Bill graduated from Southern Methodist University (SMU) and in 1958, from Emory University School of Medicine. His internship was in internal medicine at the Boston City Hospital. After a 3-year residency in anatomic pathology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, he was an assistant resident on the Osler Medical Service at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for a year and then a fellow in cardiology at the National Heart Institute in Bethesda for a year. From July 1964 until March 1993 he headed the Pathology Section or Branch of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. He has published just over 1400 articles, authored or edited 24 books, and lectured in >2000 cities (some several times) throughout the world. For 33 years, Dr. Roberts has been program director of the Williamsburg Conference on Heart Disease, held every December in Williamsburg, Virginia. He has contributed information on many cardiovascular conditions. Since March 1993, he has been executive director of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute of Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) in Dallas, Texas. Since 1994 he has been the editor in chief of BUMC Proceedings and dean of the A. Webb Roberts Center for Continuing Medical Education of Baylor Health Care System. He has been the editor in chief of The American Journal of Cardiology since June 1982 (25 years).