BEERS, Mark H. 1954-

PERSONAL: Born April 21, 1954, in Brooklyn, NY. Education: Tufts University, B.S., 1978; University of Vermont, M.D., 1982.

ADDRESSES: Home—1903 Walnut St., No. 535, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Office—Merck and Co., Inc., BLA-22, P.O. Box 4, West Point, PA 19486-0004. Agent—Mel Berger, William Morris Agency, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, research assistant in developmental biology, 1975-77; New England Medical Center, Boston, MA, intern, 1982-83, assistant in medicine, 1982-84, junior assistant resident, 1983-84; Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, NY, senior assistant resident and assistant in medicine, 1984-85; Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, MA, clinical fellow, 1985-87; University of California, Los Angeles, assistant professor of medicine and medical director of Inpatient Geriatric Unit at university's Medical Center, 1987-92, codirector of Geriatric Review Course, 1990-92, medical director of Home Care Program, 1991-92; Merck and Co., Inc., West Point, PA, associate editor, beginning 1992. Harvard University Medical School, clinical fellow in geriatric medicine and fellow of Program for the Analysis of Clinical Strategies, Division of Aging, 1985-87; Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, clinical fellow, 1985-87; Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged, Boston, MA, clinical fellow, 1985-87; Jewish Memorial Hospital, Boston, MA, attending physician, 1985-86; RAND Corp., senior natural scientist, 1989-92; California Department of Health, member of Aging Program advisory board, beginning 1989.

MEMBER: American Geriatric Society, Gerontological Society of America (fellow), American College of Physicians (fellow), American Academy of Home Care Physicians, American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Massachusetts Medical Society, Alpha Omega Alpha.

AWARDS, HONORS: Charles A. Dana fellowship, 1988-89, advanced fellowship, 1989-90; National Institute on Aging grant, 1990-92; National Quality Scholars Competition Award, 1991.

WRITINGS:

(With I. M. Rollingher) A Guide to Medications for Older Persons, University of California (Los Angeles, CA), 1991.

(With S. K. Urice) Aging in Good Health: A Complete,Essential Medical Guide for Older Men and Women and Their Families, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor) The Merck Manual of Geriatrics, Merck Research Laboratories (Whitehouse Station, NJ), c. 1995.

(Editor, with Robert Berkow and Andrew J. Fletcher) The Merck Manual of Medical Information, Merck Research Laboratories (Whitehouse Station, NJ), 1997, second edition, 2003, electronic edition published as The Merck Manual Home Edition, available at http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/.

(Editor, with Robert Berkow, Robert M. Bogin, and Andrew J. Fletcher) The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy: Centennial Edition, 17th edition, Merck Research Laboratories (Whitehouse Station, NJ), 1999.

Contributor to The Practice of Geriatrics, edited by E. Calkins, A. B. Ford, and P. R. Katz, Saunders, 1992. Contributor to medical journals. Member of editorial board, UCLA Health Insights, 1988-90, and Journal of the American Geriatric Society, beginning 1989.

SIDELIGHTS: A physician specializing in geriatrics, Mark H. Beers has written several books on the subject and has also edited editions of the well-known Merck manuals of medicine. The 1999 edition of The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy is significant in that it marks the one hundredth anniversary since the first edition was published in 1899. The editors included a facsimile of the first edition, which, according to Tony Dajer in Discover, offers an interesting opportunity for comparison. The original edition was a mere 192 pages, while the seventeenth edition is a staggering 2,833 pages, clearly demonstrating how far medicine has progressed in terms of the amount of knowledge doctors now have. Dajer further noted that some of the remedies offered by doctors a hundred years ago "were useless, sometimes even lethal." Yet Dajer also commented that there is still a problem today with physicians prescribing drugs that only treat symptoms and that many do not properly diagnose underlying causes of these symptoms. The result is that useless antibiotics are often prescribed for coughs or fevers, and other equally ineffective treatments are made when doctors look for a quick way to relieve a patient's symptoms. "The 1899 Merck Manual offers a wonderful glimpse of where we've been. And, alas, still are," Dajer concluded. In a review of the same book for Lancet, John Bignall felt that although the book is "admirably compressed and immaculately edited," it is not longer practical for today's medicine, being too large for a handy reference and too general for the needs of specialists.

The Merck Manual of Medical Information, which draws much of its information from The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, is a much more useful tool for general reference, according to Martha E. Stone in Library Journal. The 2003 edition of this book, which was first published in 1999, was praised by the critic for being more readable than the original, however Stone lamented that the editors sacrificed some scientific terms in favor of colloquial language. Yet Stone concluded that, "Because of its very modest price, as well as its proven track record of excellence, this is a book that every public, school, or consumer health library, regardless of size, would be happy to have in its reference and/or circulating collection."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Discover, September, 1999, Tony Dajer, review of The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy: Centennial Edition, p. 96.

Lancet, December 18, 1999, John Bignall, "A Centimetre Every Twenty Years," p. 2175.

Library Journal, June 15, 2003, Martha E. Stone, review of The Merck Manual of Medical Information, p. 64.

Wall Street Journal, July 17, 1995, Jerry E. Bishop, review of The Merck Manual of Geriatrics, p. A8.*