David Kelso Henderson MD

Dr. David K. Henderson was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1947, and grew up in Wabash, Indiana. He received his B.A. from Hanover College in 1969, and his M.D. from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1973. Dr. Henderson completed his internship (1973-74), residency in internal medicine (1974-76), and a fellowship in infectious diseases (1976-78) at Los Angeles County, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California. From 1978-79 he was Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine. In 1979, he was hired by the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center as the Center’s first Hospital Epidemiologist, a position he held until 2014. Positions Dr. Henderson held concurrently (and beyond) at the Clinical Center: Coordinator of AIDS Activities (1985-88); Associate Director for Clinical Quality, Patient Safety, and Hospital Epidemiology (1988-2020); and Deputy Director for Clinical Care (1994-2020). Since retiring from his position as Deputy Director for Clinical Care in January 2020, Dr. Henderson serves as Senior Consultant to the Chief Executive Officer for the Clinical Center. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed journal articles as well as dozens of book chapters, served on numerous editorial boards, including Annals of Internal Medicine, and has been an invited speaker internationally. Dr. Henderson’s membership in medical organizations has focused on those in infectious diseases and hospital epidemiology. He has consulted with numerous organizations, served on national steering committees, and is a fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America, the American College of Physicians, and the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America, as well as a founder and 2020 president of SHEA. Dr. Henderson has won many awards, including numerous NIH Director’s Awards, the Feinstein Award from the American College of Physicians for career contributions to clinical epidemiology, and the Service to America Award.