School of Medicine
Behavioral Pediatrics Veteran Honored with Professorship at KU Medical Center
Mar 30, 2006
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| Dr. Michael Rapoff is congratulated by Dr. Charles Loveland and Becky Snyder, wife of the late Dr. Ralph Snyder, during a reception following the investiture ceremony. Dr. Rapoff was honored as the Ralph L. Smith Professor in Pediatrics. |
Michael Rapoff was named the Ralph L. Smith Professor in Pediatrics at a ceremony attended by family, friends and colleagues at the KU School of Nursing auditorium.
“Michael Rapoff’s record as a researcher and educator made him the ideal candidate for this professorship,” said Barbara Atkinson, M.D., executive vice chancellor of the KU Medical Center and executive dean of the KU School of Medicine. “We are fortunate to have faculty of his caliber.”
Atkinson told attendees at the ceremony that the Smith professorship was one of 41 endowed professorships established for the KU Medical Center. These positions have long helped the medical center retain exemplary faculty members, she said.
“While many factors contribute to the quality of an academic medical center, at the heart is its faculty, for it is the faculty who carry out the mission of educating students, caring for patients and contributing to our collective body of knowledge through research,” she said.
Rapoff earned a master’s degree in human development in 1972 at KU followed by a doctorate in developmental and child psychology in 1980, also at KU. He trains clinical psychology students in health psychology and pediatric psychology, and he teaches residents and medical students. He is an American Psychological Association fellow and a licensed psychologist in Kansas and Missouri. Rapoff’s research has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Arthritis Foundation. He has written or co-written 71 articles published in journals or books. In 2003, he received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals, a division of the American College of Rheumatology.
The Ralph L. Smith Professorship in Pediatrics Fund was established at KU Endowment through the generosity of Ralph Smith, a Kansas City area businessman. Smith, who began contributing for KU pediatrics programs at KU in 1959, died in 1968.
KU Endowment is an independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fund-raising and fund-management organization for the University of Kansas. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.
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