Which medical school did you graduate from and when?
Johns Hopkins, 1975. Did a fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology at University of California, San Francisco, under the late Kenneth Melmon, who died recently. Got MPH from University of California, Berkley. Brian has been on the faculty of University of Pennsylvania since 1980 where he was hired by Paul Stolley and late John Eisenberg. Currently Brian is George S. Pepper Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Pharmacology, Chair, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Director, Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Associate Vice Dean, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and Associate Vice President for Strategic Integration, University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Which patient has had most effect on your work, and why?
I am not sure I can identify any one such patient. However, one I recall vividly is an elderly patient early in my internship who I treated for pain with full dose narcotics, who became comatose in response, needing naloxone treatment to awaken him. It sensitized me greatly to how easy it was to make medication errors. My patient care, in general, continues to inform me about questions of importance to answer; about the difficulty patients have in giving good drug histories, even for the drugs they are taking now, no less those from the past; and about all the ways patients and physicians can make errors in using pharmaceuticals.

What is your best published work?
Others would need to judge that! Given the breadth of questions I have addressed though, and contributions like my book, the answer may differ for different people. Perhaps my most impactful work though has been as chair of the Institute of Medicine's Committee on the Smallpox Vaccine Program Implementation, through which we totally changed the character of a vaccine campaign that could have been a public health disaster.

What is the best piece of advice you have received?
Don't be a database builder, but a database user.

What is the best advice that you can give to a new person in the field?
The question is, what is the question…

What is your greatest regret?
I don't believe in regrets. I consider decisions, make decisions, and live with them. Certainly, not all my decisions are correct, but I do not see that it serves any purpose to dwell on decisions of the past.

What apart from your partner is the passion of your life?
My kids, with whom I am in contact (usually by email now) many times a day. Another passion is squash, which I play three times/week.

What is your greatest fear?
Losing one of my family members. I am also afraid of heights, when walking on the edge of sheer cliffs, like when hiking in mountains.

What are you currently reading?
Newsweek (!). Truthfully, other than on vacations, I read papers, journals, newspapers, and lay magazines, but books wait for vacations.

Which is your favorite country?
Italy. It is a wonderful mix of culture, fun, and great food, with terrific natural and historical scenary, and a delightfully friendly people. Sometimes I feel like I commute there.

What do you think is the most exciting field of science at the moment?
Pharmacoepidemiology, of course!

What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
My training program, and my trainees. My wife often accuses me of being as proud of them as my own kids.

What is your favorite journey, and why?
Mongolia. It is an amazing, huge, unspoiled country filled with wonderfully warm people.

What is your favorite saying?
The question is, what is the question…

What is the least enjoyable job you've ever had?
Data coding and entry, for a summer as a college student. In my current position, my least enjoyable part of the job is when I need to terminate someone's position, especially if it is someone with whom I have had to work closely.

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