Evens to chair National Library of Medicine Board

Ronald Evens, MD, professor of radiology at Washington University School of Medicine and of medical economics at the university’s Olin Business School, has been appointed chairman of the Board of Regents for the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

Evens

Evens was director of the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology from 1971 to 1999, president of St. Louis Children’s Hospital from 1985 to 1988, vice chancellor for finance and administration for the university from 1988 to 1991, and president of Barnes-Jewish Hospital from 1999 to 2009.

The NLM Board of Regents, which comprises 10 appointed and nine ex officio members, helps advise and guide the library as it manages the worldwide flow of medical information.

The NLM is a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Located in Bethesda, Md., it is the world’s largest medical library, housing not only historic medical manuscripts dating back more than 1,000 years but also vast computer records of the latest research and discoveries in everything from the Human Genome Project to information on toxins in the environment.

Many of the library’s services, such as PubMed, a searchable database of millions of medical studies, and TOXNET, an integrated database of hazardous chemicals, toxic releases and environmental health, are available for free online.

The library also acts as a worldwide clearinghouse for information about medicine, biological sciences, genetics, the environment, clinical trials, health care, clinical research, electronic medical records and other scientific and biomedical topics.


Washington University School of Medicine’s 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient-care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.