Dr. Ronald Poropatich is the Director of the Center for Military Medicine Research (CMMR), Health Sciences and Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Poropatich is also Professor of Sports Medicine & Nutrition in the Department of Sports Medicine and Nutrition, University of Pittsburgh, School of Health and Rehabilitation Science and an affiliated faculty member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. The Pitt CMMR has been instrumental in building collaborative multi-disciplinary and multi-organizational research teams to improve the health and well-being of service members, veterans and their families that has led to significant DoD medical research funding for the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Poropatich is an experienced Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine physician who served 30 years on active duty in the US Army retiring in 2012 at the rank of Colonel with extended assignments at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD (formerly the Walter Reed Army Medical Center – WRAMC, Washington, DC), from 1985 to 2012. His last assignment was at the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick, MD, serving as the Deputy Director of the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center from 2006-2012 where he managed large medical research programs and developed novel research programs and technologies in medical informatics and telemedicine.

Dr. Poropatich received his medical degree from Drexel University in 1985. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 1988 and was selected as Chief of Medical Residents in the WRAMC Department of Medicine from 1988-1989. He completed his fellowships in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine in 1992 also at the WRAMC. As a full-time Pulmonary/Critical Care medicine physician from 1989 to 1995, Dr. Poropatich’s early research interests were in sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung condition, and the general field of bronchoscopy.

Colonel/Retired Poropatich led the U.S. Army effort from 1992-2012 in the development and deployment of telemedicine capability across 22 time zones for remote consultation for both overseas locations (Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Kuwait, Haiti, Croatia) as well as stateside U.S. Army locations. He served as the U.S. Army Medical Informatics Consultant from 2000-2008. Since 1996, he has served as an Associate Editor for the “Telemedicine and e-Health Journal,” is the former Chair of the NATO Telemedicine Expert Team (2000-2012), and former President (2002-2003) and Board Member of the American Telemedicine Association since 1995.

He is a long-standing educator and has been faculty at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science (USUHS), Bethesda, MD, since 1985 and currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Medicine. He has over 80 publications in peer-reviewed medical journals, numerous book chapters, and edited 2 books on Telemedicine. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine in Medicine, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, Fellow and past president of the American Telemedicine Association, and Fellow, American Institute for Medical Biological Engineering.

View a list of Dr. Poropatich’s publications here.