Douglas K. Pleskow, MD

An instrumental member of the Board of Directors, former Executive Director and current Scientific Advisor, Dr. Pleskow has been involved with the National Pancreas Foundation since our founding. NPF also benefits from his guidance as chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee and member of the Grant Review Committee. When not caring for his patients, Dr. Pleskow finds time in his busy schedule to post answers to NPF’s Frequently Asked Questions online and in our newsletter.

In his clinical practice of gastroenterology, Dr. Pleskow sees patients with complex gastrointestinal problems that require therapeutic endoscopic procedures. An expert in all aspects of biliary endoscopy and endoscopic ultrasound, he is also an expert in all types of pancreatic diseases. Dr. Pleskow’s major research interests have been the study of serologic markers in pancreatic disease, therapeutic pancreaticobiliary endoscopy and endoscopic ultrasound. He has also studied the effects of HIV on the gastrointestinal tract and nutrition, among others.

Dr. Pleskow received his B.A. from University of Rochester, Rochester, NY in 1978, and his M.D. from State University of NY at Buffalo, NY in 1982. His internships and residencies were at University Hospital of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio from 1982 to 1985.

A resident of Massachusetts since 1985 when he become a clinical fellow in Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Mass. General Hospital, and a research fellow in gastroenterology, Dr. Pleskow has been a physician at the New England Deaconess Hospital (now BI Deaconess Hospital) in Boston since 1987. In 1995, he became the co-director of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy at BI Deaconess Hospital, and this year established the Colorectal Cancer Center at the BI Deaconess Hospital of which he is the director. Dr. Pleskow lives in Needham, Massachusetts.