Robert Eelkema

Dr. Robert Eelkema’s dedication to improving public health began early in his career. After completing his medical training, he joined the Epidemiological Intelligence Service of the Centers for Disease Control, the organization credited with stamping out small pox as a worldwide disease. He participated in the EIS efforts to understand and eradicate polio which posed a serious threat to public health in the 1950s.

In 1964, Dr. Eelkema accepted his first academic appointment in the Department of Physiology at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and served as physician in the UND Student Health Service. Four years later, he was appointed chairman of the newly created Department of Community Medicine at the UND medical school.

During his nearly 40-year career at UND, he was a key leader in transforming the then-two-year basic sciences program into a full, four-year, MD degree-granting medical school. He served as chairman of school’s Medical Affairs Committee, working with the state’s physicians and national granting agencies to build political and fiscal support for the four-year medical school. After the medical education program was approved by the North Dakota legislature in 1973, Dr. Eelkema served as chairman of the Medical Operations Committee at UND.

In addition to his leadership in initiating the medex and Physician Assistant/Nurse Practitioner programs at UND, he was instrumental in developing the Indians into Medicine (inmed) Program to attract American Indians to the field of health care.

Dr. Eelkema is also known for spearheading the state’s effort to deinstitutionalize the developmentally-delayed residents of the Grafton State School in Grafton, ND, and a similar state-sponsored facility at Dunseith, ND—a process that proved to be both controversial and contentious.