Infectious diseases master clinician, outstanding teacher, and mentor David Rimland, MD retired in June 2015 after 38 years of dedicated service to Emory University.
Dr. Rimland served as chief of infectious diseases at the Atlanta VA Medical Center from 1990 until his retirement, and he founded the Atlanta VA Medical Center’s HIV program.
Dr. Rimland’s major clinical and research interests were the epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of opportunistic infections and the evaluation of viral load and genotypic changes in HIV as methods to guide treatment decisions. Until his retirement, Dr. Rimland was chair of the Technical Advisory Group for AIDS for the VA Central Office and served on the NIH/CDC Task Force on Prevention of Opportunistic Infections.
Dr. Rimland has been a principal investigator or investigator for numerous clinical trials on HIV and its complications over the last 20 years. He was funded as PI for 10 grants totaling more than $8 million. These studies resulted in more than 170 peer-reviewed publications to date. Dr. Rimland was the local PI in Atlanta for the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS) since its inception and was a member of the VACS Executive Committee. VACS is an 8-VA cohort study following HIV+ and matched HIV-patients to assess morbidity and mortality of HIV and its therapy.
Dr. Rimland plans to spend time with his wife, Lynn, their children, and nine grandchildren during his retirement. He also plans to travel and catch up on non-medical reading in his spare time.
Dr. Rimland was named a professor emeritus of medicine and has been seen at the occasional Infectious Diseases Journal Club and ID seminar since retirement. We hope to see him at many more in the years to come.
Photos from Dr. Rimland’s retirement celebration, held May 30 at the Miller-Ward Alumni House.
