May 16, 2005

SIU Med School Honors Two Alumni Graduates

Two graduates will receive the medical school's distinguished alumni award during commencement exercises for the 31st graduating class of Southern Illinois University School of Medicine held Saturday, May 21, in Springfield. The award from the School's Alumni Society Board of Governors recognizes outstanding contributions to medicine and distinguished service to humankind.

The 2005 recipients are Dr. Ronald L. Johnson, class of 1977, a Illinois family practitioner working in Pittsfield and Pike County since 1981, and Dr. Susan E. (Anderson) Swedo, class of 1980, associate director for child and adolescent research and chief of the developmental psychopathology and prevention research branch at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Md.

Johnson's nominators said he has provided family practice medical coverage on a full-time basis in his offices in Pittsfield and Winchester and at Illini Community Hospital. He has held various positions for the Pike County Medical Society and has been active in the American and Illinois Academies of Family Physicians and the Illinois Hospital and Health Systems Association. One nominator wrote "Dr. Johnson has what I consider an 'old fashione' mentality toward his patients….He is a fierce advocate for them and does whatever it takes to assure that they get the best possible care….In the days when so many patients feel like a number, he goes out of his way to assure that they are much more."

Johnson trained as a respiratory therapy technician and then received his bachelor's degree at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston (1974). In addition to his SIU medical degree, he completed his family practice residency at SIU's program in Carbondale (1980). He and his wife, Susan, have five children. His hometown is Hillsboro, Ill.

Dr. Swedo's nominators said that she is the senior physician-scientist at the NIMH, providing national leadership in children's mental health and overseeing the nation's research effort in child and adolescent psychiatry, including autism, attention deficit disorder and adolescent depression. Over the past two decades, she has investigated the cause of childhood-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and remains one of the national experts on the disorder. Her career and work of her research team at NIMH "has markedly expanded our understanding of psychiatric disorders and mechanisms that could produce symptoms….[she has had an] enormous impact on the field of psychiatry and pediatric movement disorders."

Swedo earned her bachelor's degree at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill. (1977) and completed her pediatric residency at Children’s Memorial Hospital at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University (1983). She began her career on the faculty of Northwestern University while also practicing as a pediatrician in Evanston, Ill., including co-directing the pediatric ICU at Evanston Hospital (1983-86). Swedo began as a research fellow in child psychiatry in NIMH in 1986 and became a senior staff research fellow in 1988. She has authored more than 90 professional books and articles. Her hometown is Geneseo, Ill.

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