Cesar Caceres, MD., is the "father of clinical engineering"
About[]
Cesar Augusto Caceres, MD., first joined AAMI’s Board of Directors in 1969, then served as AAMI’s president from 1971 to 1972. An early advocate for the clinical engineering profession, he coined the term “clinical engineer” in the mid-1960s. He organized several conferences for AAMI on topics such as clinical engineering and rising healthcare costs; won research grants for AAMI, many on topics related to clinical engineering; and edited several books on clinical engineering. He had a practice in internal medicine for 53 years and today is executive director of the Institute for Technology in Health Care in Washington, DC. He is the "father of clinical engineering" and he is credited with "How Clinical Engineering Got Its Name".[1]
History[]
In 1953, Dr. Caceres obtained his pre-medical and medical degrees from Georgetown University.[2] He obtained additional training in Internal Medicine at Tufts and Boston Universities in Boston, Massachusetts. He received Cardiology and research training from George Washington University.
He worked for the Public Health Service where he won two Superior Service Awards for developing the country’s first functional computer-electrocardiographic interpretive system. Later he joined George Washington University where he was Professor of Clinical Engineering. He also patented an electronic stethoscope. Dr. Caceres has edited and co-authored nine textbooks dealing with various aspects of medicine and health care. He has published 100+ medical journal articles.
In 1982, he saw the first patients with HIV and has been involved with the diagnosis and treatment of HIV ever since. In October 1985, an OP-Ed article on HIV in the Wall Street Journal and a letter to the Editor in the Journal of the American Medical, Dr. Caceres pointed out that the methodology used by the Centers for Disease Control to report the causes of HIV transmission understated the national figures of those who had become infected as a result of recreational drug use. As a result of these publications, the Centers for Disease Control changed their methodology for HIV reporting.
The Winter 2011 issue of HIV Specialist magazine (American Academy of HIV Medicine), featured Dr. Caceres, among other leading, early HIV treating physicians.[3]
In 1984, he was elected a fellow member of American Medical Informatics Association. [4] He is fluent in English and Spanish.
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