David B Sachar, MD

David Sachar was the first Dr. Burrill B. Crohn Professor of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine from 1992-1999, when he also held the positions of vice chairman of the Department of Medicine (1991-99) and Director of the Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology at The Mount Sinai Medical Center/Health System (1983-99). He is now Clinical Professor of Medicine and Director Emeritus of the GI Division and in 2005 he was granted a three- year Arnold P. Gold Foundation Professorship.

Dr. Sachar was an honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. While working as a research associate with the U.S. Public Health Service in Bangladesh, Dr. Sachar played a role in the development of oral rehydration therapy for cholera and other diarrheal diseases, an advance credited with saving millions of lives each year.

After completing his medical residency at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and his GI Fellowship at The Mount Sinai Hospital, he went on to become a specialist in inflammatory bowel disease, a field in which he has over 200 publications. He chaired the Research Development Committee of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America, served on the Foundation's National Scientific Advisory Committee, and was the recipient of its Distinguished Service Award in 1991. A founding director of the Burrill B. Crohn Research Foundation, he is also the first American to have been elected Chairman of the International Organization for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. In 2002, Dr. Sachar was elected a Master of the American College of Gastroenterology and in 2005 he was named a Fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association. From 2005-2008, he served as Chairman of the GI Drugs Advisory Panel of the FDA.

As the first chairman of the American Gastroenterological Association's Clinical Teaching Project, he developed new resources and set new standards for clinical teaching nationwide. His teaching activities have earned him the 1996 Distinguished Educator Award of the AGA; the 1989 Baker Presidential Lectureship of the American College of Gastroenterology; the Norman Tanner Gold Medal of St. George's Hospital Medical School in London; the K.H. Koster Memorial Lectureship of the Danish Society of Gastroenterology; the Nana Svartz Lecture of the Swedish Society of Gastroenterology; and other International State-of-the Art Lectures on the topic of inflammatory bowel disease in Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Austria, England, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Israel, India, Hong Kong and Russia.

At Mount Sinai, Dr. Sachar has received the 1975 and 1978 Faculty Awards for Excellence in Teaching, the 1984 annual Distinguished Teacher Award of the Department of Medicine, the 1987 Solomon A. Berson Award as the department's outstanding physician and teacher, the Jacobi Medallion for outstanding contributions to medicine in 1994, the Alexander Richman Commemorative Award for Humanism in Medicine in 1996, and in 1997 the "Gold-Headed Cane," Mount Sinai's highest award for the physician "best exemplifying the ideals of the profession." Mount Sinai has recognized Dr. Sachar's many years of service to the institution and the profession by permanently endowing an annual "Joanna and David B. Sachar, M.D., Internal Award and Visiting Professorship in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases" in his honor.