Dr. Mike Heisler is Professor of Medicine at the University of South Dakota. In addition to his clinical and teaching responsibilities in critical care medicine, Dr. Heisler is also leading the effort to create the Northern Plains Center for Health and the Environment.
Dr. Heisler’s most recent appointment, prior to returning home to South Dakota, was Associate Professor of Medicine at Emory University in Atlanta and Director of the Emory Section of Hospital Medicine. He also served as Medical Director at Emory Eastside Medical Center.
From January 1999 to July 2005, Dr. Heisler held a number of appointments, including Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of the Division of General Medicine, and Vice-Chair for Clinical Affairs of the Department of Medicine at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. In addition to his academic appointment at Morehouse, Dr. Heisler also served as an attending physician, Medical Director of the Health Outcomes Research Center, and Chief of the Medical Service at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Dr. Heisler completed his medical degree at George Washington University in 1979 and a residency in Internal Medicine at the Oregon Health Sciences University in 1982. During 1985/86 Dr. Heisler completed a fellowship in Critical Care Medicine at George Washington University. He received a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University in 1990.
From 1991 through 1998 Dr. Heisler held adjunct academic appointments at the Emory University School of Medicine and the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health with his primary appointment at the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, a UN sponsored international health group affiliated with the Carter Center in Atlanta. From 1994 through 1998 Dr. Heisler was Director of Programs at the Task Force and played a major role in developing the World Bank funded global river blindness control program. Dr. Heisler has traveled and worked extensively in Africa and Latin America and together with his wife Jean, also a physician, has lived for two extended periods in Kenya.
Dr. Heisler has a long list of publications including a chapter in the Williams Textbook of Hospital Medicine and has received various awards including the Sorin Award from the University of Notre Dame in 1990. He has served on a number of international and national advisory committees and currently is Vice Chair of the Board of Andean Health and Development.
Dr. Heisler and his wife have two grown children. He and Jean live on a small 40 acre farm north of Sioux Falls where they are in the process of attempting to return the land to natural prairie.
