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An initiative sprouting on the South Side of Chicago that was once led by First Lady Michelle Obama aims to become a national model for re-educating communities on everything from appropriate emergency department usage to outpatient care and healthy life choices. Dr. Eric Whitaker, executive vice president of strategic affiliations and associate dean of community-based research at the University of Chicago Medical Center, tells host Bruce Japsen about the Urban Health Initiative and what it aims to achieve.

Dr. Eric Whitaker is the executive vice president of strategic affiliations and associate dean of community-based research at the University of Chicago Medical Center. In his role, he is responsible for the medical center's Urban Health Initiative. Prior to his work at University of Chicago, he was director of the Illinois department of public health, where he oversaw a budget of more than $450 million and more than 1,200 employees statewide.  Dr. Whitaker previously was an attending physician in internal medicine at Cook County Hospital where he was involved in several research projects related to HIV/AIDS prevention and minority health, particularly for black men. Dr. Whitaker received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health, and his MD from the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. In 1991, he was president of the American Medical Student Association, which represents more than 30,000 aspiring doctors across the country

Bruce Japsen has been a healthcare business reporter for the Chicago Tribune since May of 1998. Mr. Japsen covers pharmaceutical and device makers, economic issues, managed-care companies, doctor practices and other physician issues. He has covered everything from the Vioxx-product liability trials and controversies involving the foray of Walgreens and Wal-Mart into retail medicine, to bird flu vaccine production and stem cell research. In addition to the regular healthcare business stories he writes, he has a regular Thursday column in the Tribune business section and is a regular on WGN radio and television, CBS-owned WBBM-News radio 780 and Tribune-owned CLTV. Reach his work at chicagotribune.com or follow him on Twitter.  Prior to joining the Tribune, Mr. Japsen was a reporter with Crain Communications’ Chicago-based Modern Healthcare magazine, where he covered the Chicago healthcare marketplace. He also followed national healthcare companies like Columbia/HCA Healthcare, HealthSouth, not-for-profit healthcare systems and areas of healthcare finance. He worked for Modern Healthcare from October 1993 to May 1998.  Before moving to Chicago in the fall of 1993, Mr. Japsen was a reporter for the Des Moines Register, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald and the Burlington Hawk Eye. His Iowa newspaper assignments included everything from Presidential campaigns to Big Ten football and basketball and professional minor league baseball.  Mr. Japsen is a graduate of the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication and sits on the journalism school’s advisory board. He also teaches writing, editing and communications to medical professionals at the University of Chicago’s Graham School of General Studies and is an adjunct reporting and writing professor at Loyola University of Chicago. He lives with his wife and daughter on Chicago’s North Side.

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