Programs: Kenneth J. Ryan, MD, Physician Leadership Award

Daniel R. Mishell, Jr., MD

Recipient of the 2010 Kenneth J. Ryan, MD, Physician Leadership Award
San Francisco, May 17, 2010

Dr. Mishell is the Lyle G. McNeile professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, chairman of the Keck School’s family planning fellowship program, former chairman of the Keck School’s department of obstetrics and gynecology (1978-2005), chief of professional services at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital (part of the Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center), and since 1977, editor-in-chief of the journal Contraception.

For nearly forty years, Dr. Mishell has worked with the Population Council, helping to develop the copper IUD, Norplant, and the contraceptive ring. Dr. Mishell’s research has led to advances in pregnancy tests, surgical management of ectopic pregnancy, and, more broadly, our understanding of reproductive endocrinology. He performed the first immunoassay of hCG in serum and LH in urine. Dr. Mishell was the first to describe the midcycle, preovulatory peak of LH in urine and report the pattern of LH, FSH, estradiol, and progesterone each day of the normal menstrual cycle.

A member of ACOG, Dr. Mishell has authored 360 scientific papers, of which 293 have appeared in peer-reviewed journals. He has written more than 175 chapters for medical textbooks. Dr. Mishell has edited or co-edited 45 textbooks, including Comprehensive Gynecology (fourth edition, 2001), Menopause: Physiology and Pharmacology (1988), Mishell’s Textbook of Infertility, Contraception and Reproductive Endocrinology (fourth edition, 1997), and Management of Common Problems in Obstetrics and Gynecology (fourth edition, 2001).

Dr. Mishell has trained more than 400 residents. He helped establish one of the early family planning fellowships. His own medical education began with an MD in 1955 from Stanford. He had residency training in internal medicine at Bellevue in New York City through Cornell University and in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He had a research fellowship in reproductive endocrinology at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden.

In addition to his position as editor-in-chief of Contraception, Dr. Mishell is associate editor of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine and serves on the editorial boards of several other journals. He was the editor of The Yearbook of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women’s Health (1987-2004). Dr. Mishell was president of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (1986-1990) and its chairman (1990-1994). He was also president of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation (1987-1988). That society honored him with its Distinguished Scientist Award in 1994. Dr. Mishell has received many more commendations in his five-decade career, such as the Alan F. Guttmacher Lectureship from the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (1999), the position of fellow ad eundem from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (2003), and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Family Planning (2007).