Charles Prober
Charles Prober, MD is the Senior Associate Vice Provost for Health Education and Founding Executive Director of the Stanford Center for Health Education. He is a Professor of Pediatrics, Microbiology and Immunology. He is an expert in pediatric infectious diseases with an academic career focused on the epidemiology, pathophysiology, prevention, and treatment of infections in children.
Some of his seminal work has resulted in the improvement of international blood transfusion practices through the selection of CMV negative donors for immunocompromised hosts; the optimal duration of antibiotic therapy for serious bacterial infections, including osteomyelitis and meningitis; the use of antiviral agents in the management of serious herpes virus infections; and the standardization of care in the management of pregnant women with HSV infections. Prober has published extensively in peer-reviewed subspecialty, specialty, and general medical journals and he is editor of Principles and Practice of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, one of the major textbooks in the field of pediatric infectious diseases.
Dr. Prober has been involved in medical education throughout his career. He has directed a number of undergraduate and graduate student courses in the classroom and at the bedside, served as Associate Chair for Education for the Department of Pediatrics, and lectured locally, nationally, and internationally on infectious diseases and medical education. He served as Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education at Stanford from 2007-2017 and in that role he worked diligently to create a more diverse and supportive educational environment for our students and graduate medical trainees. Some of the initiatives developed under his leadership included: the highly successful Educators-4-CARE (E4C) program, the Office of Medical Student Wellness, expansion of combined degree programs, the creation of the Stanford Society for Physician Scholars for residents and fellows, the use of Multi-Mini Interviews as part of our medical school admissions process, and the creation of our Teaching and Mentoring Academy.
In addition to being a national advocate for enhancing the richness of interactions between faculty and students in medical education, Charles has advocated for a more measured approach to the use of national examination scores in the selection of residents, working with the leadership of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Prober is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the 2016 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Award for Outstanding and Innovative Contributions to Medical Education.