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Excitement for research nurtured at
Mayo Clinic thrives today in solving global
environmental health problems
William J. Martin II, M.D., says the Balfour Award he
received in 1979 launched his research career.
“The award changed my life,” he says. “Mayo’s generous
support at that critical moment in my career created
opportunities that I would never have considered possible
and led me to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I remain
grateful to Mayo and to those who created the award to foster
career development of Mayo fellows.”
Dr. Martin grew up in Rochester, and his father, William
J. Martin, M.D. (I ’49), was on the Mayo Clinic staff.
“I was very familiar with the opportunities at Mayo from
an early age,” says Dr. Martin. He completed his residency
in internal medicine and a pulmonary fellowship at Mayo
Clinic. “I was interested in using biochemistry and cell
biology to better understand how lung diseases develop.
The Balfour Award permitted me to go to the NIH’s National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Pulmonary Branch, as a
research fellow for two years, working in one of the best
scientific laboratories in the United States and studying the
mechanisms of lung disease.
“Mayo made it clear that a Balfour Award recipient
would be welcomed back on staff or, if you were recruited
elsewhere, the award was a wise investment in the future
of medicine.”
He returned to Mayo Clinic in 1981 as a consultant in
the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and
established an NIH-funded research laboratory. After seven
years on staff, he left Mayo Clinic to become director of the
pulmonary/critical care division at Indiana University.
Under his leadership for 12 years, the division grew fivefold
and increased its NIH research funding by thirtyfold.
During that period, he served one year as a health policy
fellow for Sen. Edward Kennedy, working on legislation
related to health care, the Food and Drug Administration
and the NIH. Dr. Martin became associate dean for clinical
affairs at Indiana University School of
Medicine, president of Indiana University
Health Care and, later, dean of the College
of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati.
He also served as president of the American
Thoracic Society.
Having a change of heart after a hurricane
In 2005, Dr. Martin’s career focus shifted from
academic medicine to global health after he
served four weeks as a volunteer physician
with Project Hope on the U.S. Navy hospital
ship USNS Comfort, tending to the people
of coastal Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.
“The health care infrastructure support was
destroyed, and the human health needs were
William J. Martin II, M.D. (right), was a consultant
in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care
Medicine during the 1980s.
2013 | No. 1 15