John M. Leonard, M.D.

John Leonard served as the Department of Medicine’s second director of the residency program from 1983 until 2003. Dr. Leonard completed his M.D. at Vanderbilt in 1967, finishing first in his class as the Founders’ Medalist. After his PGY2 year at Yale-New Haven Medical Center, he joined the Center for Disease Control as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer. Dr. Leonard returned to Vanderbilt in 1971 as the Hugh J. Morgan Chief Resident in Medicine and completed his Fellowship in Infectious Diseases in 1973.

Since 1974 Dr. Leonard has been an attending physician in the Department of Medicine and a consulting physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases. From 1983 through 2003, he was the Director of Residency Training. Among the 7,000 or so applicants who have interviewed with Dr. Leonard over the years, a common theme is heard over and over again: “The most memorable moment of the entire housestaff application process was the 30 minutes I spent with Dr. Leonard.” He also served concurrently as Director of the Junior Medicine Clerkship and Co-Director for the combined Medicine/Pediatric Training Program. More recently, he was chief of medical services at Saint Thomas Hospital, and currently he is a professor of medicine in infectious disease at Vanderbilt.

Dr. Leonard has received numerous academic awards and distinctions during his tenure at Vanderbilt, including the internal Thomas E. Brittingham Award for Teaching Excellence in 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1994; the Distinguished Housestaff Teacher in 1992; and the Hugh Jackson Morgan Teaching Award in 2001. He has published and presented lectures and grand rounds on such diverse subjects as “Tuberculous Meningitis” and “Fatherhood, Fever, and Funny Lymphocytes.”

Like Dr. Brittingham before him, Dr. Leonard has maintained the reputation of always having time for his patients, his housestaff, and his family. Love of people and love of medicine have made Dr. John Leonard an integral part of the national reputation of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.