George Fuchs, MD, is a professor of pediatric gastroenterology, and previously served as vice chair of clinical affairs within the UK College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics.
Dr. Fuchs has had a storied and impressive medical career and has practiced around the world. We are pleased to announce that he was recently awarded the Margaret Stallings Distinguished Service Award by the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (NASPGHAN).
This award is presented to an individual to recognize excellence and service to the field of pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition by achieving national and/ or international recognition in their field.
Congratulations, Dr. Fuchs!
The following biography is excerpted from the NASPGHAN awards announcement:
George J. Fuchs was born in 1951. He attended the University of Missouri at Columbia, studying zoology, then the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara and the University of Missouri-Columbia Schools of Medicine, completing the program at the end of 1979 and graduating in the spring of 1980. In between medical school and starting an internal medicine internship, he worked in a pediatrics/intensive feeding ward in a refugee camp along the Thai-Cambodian border, which was foundational as it inspired him to go into pediatrics and pediatric research. He also met Marianne De Wier, who he subsequently married. Following an internship in Arizona, he completed his residency in pediatrics at Tufts-New England Medical Center.
Dr. Fuchs completed two pediatric fellowships: pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition, first at Tufts, then at the University of Texas Health Science in Houston, and pediatric infectious disease, also in Texas. With these credentials, he started his career at Louisiana State University in New Orleans. He quickly added research and was in residence in Thailand while on faculty in Louisiana. This was the beginning of a long-standing relationship with Chiang Mai University, as well as other institutions, in Thailand. His work examined malnutrition in children in Thailand.
In the mid-1990s, Dr. Fuchs was publishing works on vitamin A, zinc, and iron deficiency and their impact on child growth and morbidity. He expanded his work to Bangladesh
and began studying treatments for the severe diarrheal diseases that afflicted so many children there. Importantly, he studied vitamin A and zinc supplementation for children with diarrheal diseases and its impact on low birth weight, child development, and morbidity, leading randomized, double-blind studies in a difficult environment. His work was fundamental to establishing WHO guidelines for the management of diarrhea and malnutrition in developing countries. During these years, George and Marianne had two children, George IV and Connor. Later, because of the premature death of his brother, they include as part of their family a nephew Bo, and a niece Emily.
George served on several prestigious committees and workgroups focused on childhood nutrition and public health. He was the associate director and head of the clinical sciences division of the Centre for Health and Population Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He served or chaired NASPGHAN and AAP committees, worked with and chaired the Functional GI Disorders Working Group on Gastrointestinal Aspects of Autism for The Autism Society of America, Committee, Research Prioritization in Childhood, the Diarrheal Disease: Case Management for the Global Action Plan for Diarrhea as part of the Programme for Global Paediatric Research. He was a member of the International Expert Consensus Group on the Compositional Requirements of Follow-Up Formula to support the development of a Codex Alimentarius standard in Taiwan in 2012 and Bangkok in 2014. This was an extension of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, created in 1963 by FAO and WHO to develop food standards, guidelines, and related texts to protect consumer health, ensure food fair trade practices, and promote coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations).
George moved to Little Rock, Ark. in 2001 to become chief of pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition. He built a strong program, moving to Lexington, Ky. in 2015 to chair the division of pediatric gastroenterology and serve as vice chair of clinical affairs for the department of pediatrics at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.
George Fuchs's career contains much more detail and fascinating accomplishments. His path reveals the flexibility inherent in pediatric gastrointestinal surgery. Dr. Fuchs is a great example of seeing beyond our clinics to the world. His accomplishments changed the care of children globally and in this country. He is indeed worthy of the Margaret Stallings Distinguished Service Award.