Fellows Profile: Robert A. Schwartz

Robert A. Schwartz, MD, MPH
Professor and Head of Dermatology, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, New Jersey Medical School

Newark, NJ

Professor Robert A. Schwartz, MD, one of America’s foremost dermatologists, is Professor and Head of Dermatology at New Jersey Medical School, New York, New York, USA. He is also Professor of Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the New Jersey Medical School.

Dr. Schwartz has authored several books, most recently Skin Cancer Recognition and Management, second edition [Wiley-Blackwell, 2008] and Dermatology Jewels: An Approach to Diagnosis [Macmillan Medical Communications, 2011]. He has also written 10 monographs, and is the author of over 250 book chapters, 500 articles, and 150 other publications. Many of these are in the area of dermatologic oncology, where Professor Schwartz maintains a special interest in epidermal tumors and Kaposi’s sarcoma. In 1981, Prof. Dr. Schwartz led one of the three groups that first described AIDS-associated Kaposi sarcoma (KS-AIDS). In 1978, he described florid cutaneous papillomatosis, also known as the Schwartz-Burgess syndrome. He is credited with the clinical description of new subtypes, telangiectatic Kaposi’s sarcoma, keloidal Kaposi’s sarcoma and ecchymotic Kaposi’s sarcoma. Also, he is the first one to describe acral acanthotic anomaly (acral acanthosis nigricans). In 1980, Edmund Klein, Robert A. Schwartz and associates authored an article published in Cancer which is today considered a breakthrough employing low-dosage and hence non-immunosuppressive therapy with vinblastine for Kaposi’s sarcoma. This was one of the first effective treatments of a cancer that became more frequent as the AIDS epidemic unfolded.

Professor Schwartz has been elected a Member Honoris Causa of the Bulgarian, Czech, Iranian, Italian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukrainian, and Yugoslavian National Dermatologic Societies. He has lectured widely, including eighteen consecutive years on the faculty of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology, as a featured speaker at the Jubilee 25th Congress of the Polish Dermatologic Association in Lódz, Poland (1995), at the 5th Annual Congress of the Caribbean Dermatologic Society in Bridgetown, Barbados (1996), at the 50th Congress of the Japanese Dermatologic Society in Nagoya (1999), at the 41st Italian National Dermatology Congress in Capri, Italy (2003), at the 9th International Congress of Dermatology in Beijing, China (2004), the 5th Symposium of the Korean Dermatopathology Society at Korea Univ. Seoul (2005), the 33rd Annual Society for Cutaneous Ultrastructural Research meeting in Warsaw (2007), the combined Czech and Slovak National Dermatology Congress in Bratislava (2007), 8th Iranian Congress of Dermatology (2008), 8th National Congress Bulgarian Dermatologic Society (2008), 27th Colombian Congress of Dermatology (2008), 15th Jornada de Dermatología Clínica Alemana – Universidad Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile (2009), and the 4th Congress of the Macedonian Dermatologic Society (2009). He also served as visiting professor at the University of Kuwait (2009). He delivered the 3rd Annual Raul Fleishmajer Memorial Lecture at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine (2008). In 2010, he was the featured speaker at the 62nd Annual Korean Dermatology Association meeting in the ancient capital, Gyeongyu, gave the Albert Neisser Distinguished Professor Lecture at the Wroclaw (Breslau) University, was a featured speaker at the . He is a past President of the Dermatology Section of the New York Academy of Medicine, a recipient of the Memorial Medal of the Warsaw Dermatologic Society (Poland), 2001, the Hieronymus Fracastorus Medal of the Italian Dermatologic Society (2003), and the Academia Medica Wratislaviensis Polonia Medal, Awarded by University Rector Magnificus, Medical University of Wroclaw, Breslau (2007).  In 2010 he was elected an International Corresponding Member, Academia Amazonense de Medicina, Manaus, Brazil, having served as guest faculty at the Brazilian Society of Dermatology meeting in Salvador, Bahia and at its Amazonia regional event in Manaus. He is an Assistant Editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Editor of the Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina Panonica Adriatica, Associate Editor of Cutis and Acta Dermatovenerologica Croatica, Deputy Editor of Mycoses, Contributing Editor of Dermatologic Surgery, and Section Editor of the Journal of Surgical Oncology. He is a member of the editorial boards of numerous dermatology journals, including the International Journal of Dermatology, the Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, the Indian Journal of Dermatology, Giornale Italiano di Dermatologia e Venereologia, the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, and Cesko-Slovenská Dermatologie. He has been active on NIH study sections since 2004, and in 2009 began a five-year term on the Board of Directors of the International Society of Dermatology.

Prof. Schwartz, a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, received his BA in political science, in 1969 and Master of Public Health in medical administration in 1970 from University of California at Berkeley, USA. He then matriculated into New York Medical College in Manhattan, USA, and graduated as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha National Honor Medical Society in 1974. He trained in dermatology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and at Roswell Park Memorial Institute – State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine, USA. He later completed a fellowship in dermatopathology. He advanced in academia, from the University of Arizona and the University of California at San Francisco to the New Jersey Medical School, where in 1983 he became the first permanent head of dermatology, establishing a dermatology residency program in 1984. Prof. Schwartz is board certified in Dermatology and in Diagnostic and Laboratory Immunology.

At New Jersey Medical School Professor Schwartz has been Faculty President twice, Chairman of its medical school committee on appointments and promotions twice, Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society Chapter President four times, and twice as Secretary of the Alpha Omega Alpha National Honor Society chapter, which he currently heads as Chapter Councilor. He received the “Faculty of the Year” Award at New Jersey Medical School in 2002 and has been chosen as “Top Doctor” multiple times by New York Magazine, Inside Jersey and Castle-Conolly Guide to Best Physicians.

Specialty:
Dermatology

Member of Section(s):
Dermatology, History of Medicine and Public Health (Chair, Dermatology)