Hopkins Appointed to National Vaccine Advisory Committee

March 13, 2017 | March 13, 2017 | Robert Hopkins Jr., M.D., a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) professor and division director, has been appointed to the National Vaccine Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The committee recommends national vaccine policies to the director of the National Vaccine Program. Hopkins’ four-year term began February 2017.

“Vaccines are the most important public health advance in the past two centuries,” Hopkins said. “Immunization has allowed us to dramatically reduce the impact of vaccine-preventable diseases worldwide. While we have made tremendous progress, we continue to have outbreaks of influenza, pertussis, measles and other diseases that cause significant disease and death. My goal is to contribute to our national and international efforts to teach the value of vaccination, improve immunization practices and facilitate the development of more and better vaccines to improve human health.”

Hopkins is director of the Division of General Internal Medicine in the College of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine and sees patients at the Internal Medicine Clinic – South. He teaches in the Pediatrics and Internal Medicine departments.

Hopkins has served as director of the Combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program since 2006. He earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia and completed an internship and residency in internal medicine/pediatrics at UAMS.

Hopkins has previously served nationally as a member of the National Quality Forum Adult Immunization Committee and was a participant in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Clinical Decision Support for Immunization II Project. Since 2003, he has served on the Executive Committee of the National Influenza Vaccine Summit, which is co-sponsored by the CDC and the American Medical Association.

Hopkins is a member of the Vaccine Medical Advisory Committee for the Arkansas Department of Health and is a nationally known speaker on Adult Immunization Practices.

He is a member of numerous professional and medical associations, including the American College of Physicians, Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine, the Association of Pediatric Program Directors and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,485 students, 915 medical residents and fellows, and seven dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 11,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.

###