Robert W. Block, M.D., FAAP, who served as AAP president in 2011-’12 and chaired the Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect, died Feb. 7 at age 81.
Dr. Block was an emeritus professor of pediatrics and past Daniel C. Plunket Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine in Tulsa. He was appointed Oklahoma’s first chief child abuse examiner in 1989, a role he held until October 2011.
“Dr. Block was one of the fathers of child abuse pediatrics, mentoring countless clinicians over the years,” said Antoinette Laskey, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., FAAP, chair of the AAP Council on Child Abuse and Neglect. “When he became president of the AAP, his words became words many of us used to remind people of the value of children, ‘All adults once were children, not all children will get to become an adult.’ His impact on me personally and many of my colleagues will be forever remembered because of his focus on doing what was right because it was what was right for children.”
In his presidential address at the 2012 AAP National Conference & Exhibition, Dr. Block said, “I believe it is our care, and our caring, that helps define the soul of a pediatrician.”
It is pediatricians’ collective soul, he added, “that will enable us to retain our focus on infants, children, adolescents and young adults, regardless of our identification as a generalist, subspecialist or whatever it may be.”
Dr. Block served as president and board chair of the Academy on Violence and Abuse, where he focused on increasing education for health care professionals and academic research on the health effects of violence and abuse. He served as the first chair of the sub-board on child abuse and neglect with the American Board of Pediatrics from 2006-’09 and continued to serve on the sub-board through 2012.
In 2021, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits for his lifetime of philanthropy and volunteer leadership to charitable causes and organizations. He was the 2006 recipient of the Ray Helfer Society Award for contributions to the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Dr. Block was inducted into the Tulsa Hall of Fame in 2013.
Dr. Block earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and completed his pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
