Arthur Fournier
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Arthur Michael Fournier, M.D. has been the standard of excellence in health care education and community service for the past three decades. Currently a professor and vice chairman of the Family Medicine & Community Health Department and the associate dean for Community Health Affairs, Dr. Fournier has been sharing his expertise in family medicine, internal medicine, HIV/AIDS, nursing and community health affairs with students at the University of Miami School of Medicine since 1978.

One of the world’s top authorities on HIV/AIDS, Dr. Fournier was one of the original doctors who battled the disease when it first surfaced in the early 1980s. A published author, he recently completed his fourth book, “The Zombie Curse,” a memoir that details his experiences treating the original HIV/AIDS patients and his work fighting the disease in Haiti. A renowned media expert, Dr. Fournier has appeared on such national outlets as Bloomberg News, ABC Morning Radio Network and “The Power” on XM Satellite Radio.

A frequently published academic, Dr. Fournier has written four books, including his recently published memoir The Zombie Curse, detailing his work with HIV/AIDS patients in Haiti as well as monographs and 35 journal articles. His numerous publications have covered subjects such as arthritis, drowning, coronary artery disease, orthopedics, nursing, internists, internal medicine and community health care. He has served as an editing reviewer for Chest and the Journal of General Internal Medicine since 1989 and more recently became an editing reviewer for American Journal of Preventive Medicine and Academic Medicine.

Over the past ten years, Dr. Fournier has conducted significant research on behalf of the State of Florida’s Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services and the State of Florida’s Area Health Education Center. In 2000, he received a patent on a cervical self-sampling device that he conceived.

He is a regular speaker at exhibitions and conferences, most recently, at “Financing Community-Based Health Professions Education Through an Area Health Education Center Mechanism” in Washington, DC and “A Community Service Tobacco Awareness Curriculum in Medicine School” in Chicago, IL.

Dr. Fournier’s tireless efforts in community health care have been recognized on numerous occasions, particularly for his work involving the Haitian-American Community. He has coordinated and led students and faculty teams providing humanitarian health care services in Haiti. He founded a medical exchange program with the teaching hospital and medical school of Haiti with several schools in the United States. In 1997, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement in Transcultural Medicine Award by the International Institute of Human Understanding. In 2001, he was profiled in Marquis Who’s Who in America and was a finalist for the Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce’s Health Care Heroes Award.

In 1994, Dr. Fournier co-founded Project Medishare, a group of physicians and health care professionals committed to rebuilding the medical infrastructure of Haiti. He conceived, implemented and supervised the Jackson Memorial Hospital and University of Miami Employee Health Plans and has also served as a consultant for peer review for the Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Health Professions, Learn and Serve America and the Corporation for National Service. He has served as a consultant to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in establishing area health education centers.

His professional memberships include the Society of General Internal Medicine, American College of Physicians, Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and the American College of Preventive Medicine.

A South Florida resident for 25 years, Dr. Fournier earned a Bachelor’s of arts degree from Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts in 1969 and a medical degree from the Tufts University School of Medicine in 1973. After completing his residency, he practiced with the National Health Service Corps in Virginia for two years before joining the University of Miami School of Medicine.

Blog Entries by Arthur Fournier

Haiti: Destiny's Child

Posted February 3, 2010 | 11:25:53 (EST)

"Fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes is all you've got!" the pilot screamed, in a voice loud enough to be heard over the roar of the four turbo props powering the cargo plane to our immediate left. "I want to help, but the Army's running the show here now, and I've only...

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A Prophet Is Never Recognized

Posted July 1, 2009 | 12:25:41 (EST)

"I have often wondered why it costs so much to give care to the poor. The answer, I believe, is that health care service is no longer a special calling but increasingly a for-profit-business."

The above quote is from Dr. Lynn Carmichael, one of the founders of modern Family Medicine,...

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The Monkey and the Smoking Gun

Posted March 16, 2009 | 16:43:00 (EST)

Why, one might ask, would this contributor, who in the past has written exclusively on subjects germaine to Haiti, dare to weigh in on the most recent controversy concerning race in the United States -- the now infamous cartoon published in the New York Post showing policemen, with smoking pistols,...

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Haiti on the Brink

Posted January 28, 2009 | 14:34:40 (EST)

It's really becoming a recurrent theme -- a day that I anticipated would mark another joyful milestone of progress in Haiti's central plateau is sobered at 6 a.m. by The Miami Herald's latest story of Haiti's woes: the threat of donor fatigue; the inability to get aid to the people...

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Unsung Heroes

Posted October 3, 2008 | 18:55:14 (EST)

I knew this would happen. After reports of devastating floods in Haiti and photos of the destroyed cities of Gonaives and Cabaret appeared in the media, Americans opened their hearts to flood victims. Dignitaries and celebrities visited and international relief agencies began the process, once again, of ministering emergency aid....

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No Time for Subtlety

Posted September 12, 2008 | 13:35:41 (EST)

It's bad -- even worse than the reports from Cabaret and Gonaives would lead you to believe, and these cities, on the coast, are at least relatively accessible. In fact, most of Haiti's 8-12 million people live in an inaccessible interior, rarely visited by the press, who focus more on...

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In Response to the ABC Nightline Special on Sex Trade in Haiti

Posted July 17, 2008 | 16:20:17 (EST)

Mr. Dan Harris, of ABC News, is to be commended for calling attention to the problem of child slavery. This problem of modern slavery is not, however, unique to Haiti, nor is it confined to children. It will be found anywhere there are vulnerable populations in contact with others of...

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