Richard Roberts, MD, JD

Richard Roberts is a Professor Emeritus and past Chair in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health in Madison.  For more than 35 years, Doctor Roberts practiced as a family doctor in a rural community in southwestern Wisconsin, while also serving as a faculty member and global primary care leader.  Roberts has been President of the World Organization of Family Doctors, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and the Wisconsin Medical Society.  He has most recently consulted for primary care services at the University of California (UC)-San Francisco and helped to launch a rural Family Medicine Residency in Ukiah, which is affiliated with UC-Davis. 

Professor Roberts has special expertise in primary care policy, clinical decision support tools such as guidelines, healthcare standards, and patient safety.  He has consulted and taught on primary care redesign, patient safety, and healthcare reform in more than 70 countries.  He is currently an advisor to the ECRI Patient Safety Organization and on the faculty of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement-National Patient Safety Foundation. 

He was on advisory boards for the Johns Hopkins ACG Systems and Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre in the UK. He was a director on the boards of the American Medical Accreditation Program and the Commission on Laboratory Accreditation. He served as a member of the Medical Advisory Panel to the Technology Evaluation Center of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Shield Association and the Standards Committee of the National Committee for Quality Assurance.  He chaired the United Health Group advisory panel on primary care and emergency services.

Roberts received his bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MD from George Washington University School of Medicine.  He completed a Family Medicine Residency at UCLA-Santa Monica.  He has been conferred fellowship status by a number of organizations, including the AAFP, American College of Legal Medicine, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Royal College of General Practitioners in the United Kingdom, and World Organization of Family Doctors.