Distinguished Chemistry Alumni Seminar
in Honor of Professor Howell Clark 

2007

Dr. Richard Hurt

Dr. Howell Clark and Dr. Richard Hurt

Richard D. Hurt, M.D.

Professor of Medicine

Director, Nicotine Dependence Center

Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

A native of Murray, Kentucky, and a 1966 graduate of Murray State University (Distinguished Alumnus Award 1993), Dr. Hurt received his M.D. from the University of Louisville, interned at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and did his internal medicine fellowship at Mayo Clinic.  Father of 3 and grandfather of 6, he joined the staff of Mayo Clinic in the Division of Community Internal Medicine in 1976 and as Division Chair from 1987-1997.  Through his many academic activities, he rose to achieve the rank of Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in 1995. 

He is founder and director of the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center.  This center embodies the integration of the three parts of the Mayo signature with programs in practice, education, and research. Since its inception in April 1988, the Nicotine Dependence Center Treatment Program staff has treated over 35,000 patients with services including individual counseling, group programs, telephone counseling, and an intensive residential treatment program.  Through its Education Program, education services are provided for medical students, residents, trainees, and fellows, a twice yearly conference for healthcare providers and a counselor certification course for tobacco treatment specialists.  The Research Program staff has conducted scores of randomized clinical trials with pharmacologic agents, in addition to outcomes research, behavioral interventions, epidemiologic studies, and basic science research.

Dr. Hurt is an internationally recognized expert on tobacco, providing perspectives to audiences ranging from scientific organizations, to Dateline, Good Morning America, the Today Show, and to legislative bodies like the United States Senate and the Minnesota Legislature.  He has served on numerous study sections and boards and has served as a consultant to the Ministry of Health of several countries and to the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Hurt was the first witness for the State in the historic Minnesota tobacco trial which resulted in a settlement with the cigarette manufacturers, including the release of over 50 million pages of previously secret internal tobacco company documents.  From 1998-2003, Dr. Hurt served as the Chair of the Board of the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco (MPAAT), a new nonprofit organization that was created by the settlement reached in the Minnesota tobacco trial in May 1998.  In 2003 he received a William Cahan Distinguished Professor Award from the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute and the Research Career Achievement Award from the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine.  Dr.Hurt is Author or coauthor of over 150 scientific publications.

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