Donald A. B. Lindberg, MD, a leader in medical informatics and former director of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health, died on August 17 at the age of 85. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage following a fall at his home.
Dr. Lindberg graduated from Amherst College before entering Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons as it was known then. He completed a residency in Pathology at Columbia before joining the faculty at the University of Missouri in Columbia. There he oversaw the first computer-based clinical laboratory. He rose to the positions of Professor of Information Science and Professor of Pathology.
In 1984, Dr. Lindberg was named director of the NLM. He envisioned the future of computers in medicine. Under his leadership, the NLM began providing access to clinical trials information, environmental data, genomic information, and molecular sequence data. In 1993, the library's website, one of the first in federal government, was established. He helped establish the NLM's National Center for Biotechnology Information, which provides access to results from the human genome project and to biomedical and life sciences journals. He was also an advocate for NLM's Visible Human Project, which created publicly available complete, anatomically detailed, three-dimensional representations of both a human male and female body. He oversaw many exhibitions that feature information about American Indians, Asian Americans, Artic people, the elderly, and Spanish-speaking population. He personally interviewed more than 100 Native Americans; Alaska Natives; and Native Hawaiian physicians, leaders, and medical students for NLM's Native Voices Exhibition.
As director of the NLM, he instituted transformative programs such as free Internet access to MEDLINE through PubMed and Medline Plus, a website for the public. He was always concerned with providing quality health information to patients, consumers, and health professionals. In addition, the NLM coordinated health information resources and technology for disaster preparedness. He also was the recipient of the American College of Medical Informatics Collen Award.
Dr. Lindberg was recognized for his many contributions and leadership throughout his career. He was the first president of the American Medical Informatics Association. The Medical Library Association awarded him honorary membership in 2013. At his retirement from the NLM in 2015, he received the Paul Eva Peters Award from the Coalition for Networked Information for his achievements in the creative and innovative use of network-based information resources. He helped to train thousands of individuals in medical informatics, who went on to careers in academia and industry. He led federal interagency programs as founding director of the National Coordination Office for High Performance Computing and Communications in the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy and as U.S. National Coordinator for the G-7 Global Health Care Application Projects.
Dr. Lindberg was elected to the ACCA in 2001. He gave two presentations as a member of the ACCA. His first talk, “Biomedical Informatics: Precious Scientific Resource and Public Policy Dilemma,” outlined five application areas of the NLM: (1) appropriate access by individuals to medical knowledge and understanding, (2) new knowledge in genomics, (3) mathematical modeling and understanding of human anatomy, (4) computer-based health records, and (5) bioengineering developments. He went on to discuss four public policy issues: (1) intellectual property rights and public access to information, (2) medical data privacy, (3) genetic testing rights, and (4) information warfare/homeland defense. These public policies continue to be discussed and reanalyzed 20 years later.
Dr. Lindberg presented his second paper at the ACCA at the request of President Abboud who wanted to analyze the issues related to climate change. His paper entitled “My Flying Machine Was Out of Order” argued that the “ACCA may wish to address the impact of climate on health.” He made a plea to participate in and contribute to studies on the influence of climate on health.
Dr. Lindberg is survived by his wife of more than 60 years, Mary, a brother, two sons, and two grandchildren. Many colleagues regarded Dr. Lindberg as being a “renaissance” man who loved to read and valued lifelong learning. He also loved to sail and had great photographer abilities. His work has influenced millions of patients, physicians, and scientists who rely on access to our continuously expanding corpus of biomedical information.
Stephen B. Greenberg, MD, MACP
