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Guest Name
Robert Gould MD
Guest Occupation
Medical Doctor/President San Francisco Physicians for Social Responsibility
Guest Biography

Robert M. Gould, MD graduated from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and from 1981 until 2012 worked as a Pathologist at Kaiser Hospital in San Jose. In 2012 Bob was appointed as an Associate Adjunct Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the UCSF School of Medicine, to serve as Director of Health Professional Outreach and Education for the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE). 

Since 1989, he has been President of the San Francisco-Bay Area Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), and in 2003 was President of National PSR, to serve again in this capacity in 2014. Since 1986, Bob has been an active in the Peace Caucus of the American Public Health Association, for which he has been Chairperson for numerous years, and in 2009 APHA awarded Bob the prestigious Sidel-Levy Peace Award.

In addition to speaking and publishing extensively on the clinician’s role in environmental and public health advocacy, Bob is an expert on the environmental and public health impacts of nuclear weapons; he is a contributing author to chapters on health impacts of nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism in “War and Public Health” (2008) and “Terrorism and Public Health” (2011) published by Oxford University Press. Since 1992 Bob has been a leading member of the Environmental Committee of the Santa Clara County chapter of the California Medical Association (CMA), and through this work has authored and submitted numerous environmental health resolutions adopted by CMA as policy.

For his work within CMA, he received the Santa Clara County Medical Association’s "Outstanding Contribution in Community Service" award in 2001, and “Outstanding Contribution to the Medical Society award in 2012. Dr. Gould was also listed as one of Santa Clara County's "Top 400 Physicians" in peer-review surveys published in San Jose Magazine in 2001 through 2007.
Areas of Expertise:

  • U.S. chemical policy and health effects of environmental toxins
  • Biological Weapons and public health
  • Air pollution and air quality regulations
  • Nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament
  • Nuclear war, terrorism and preparedness
  • Global warming, fossil fuel energy and public health
  • Nuclear power and related waste and proliferation issues 
  • Greening Hospital Practices

"As a human being and physician I am deeply drawn to PSR's mission to "protect human life from the greatest threats to health and survival." Being active in PSR greatly strengthens my determination to help preserve the web of life that sustains us all, and which is severely threatened by nuclear weapons and rampant militarism, toxic pollution and global warming."  --Robert Gould MD