PASSINGS: Charles Lewis
Charles Lewis
UCLA professor of healthcare
Dr. Charles Lewis, 81, a longtime UCLA professor whose research included preventive medicine, AIDS and delivery of healthcare, died Jan. 7 at his home in Los Angeles after a long illness, his family said.
Lewis was a professor emeritus of health services, nursing and family medicine at UCLA’s School of Public Health. He came to UCLA in 1970.
He was born Dec. 28, 1928, in Kansas City, Mo. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1953 and earned a master’s and a doctorate of science from the University of Cincinnati.
Lewis was “an excellent, creative scholar who pioneered some very important areas of research,” said Dr. Martin Shapiro, professor of medicine and health services and chief of general internal medicine and health services research at UCLA.
Lewis’ study of geographic variations in medical care “provoked broad areas of research . . . very central to the healthcare policy debates going on right now,” Shapiro said.
Another study looked at the medical care provided by nurses and the findings “paved the way for the nurse practitioner movement,” said Mary Ann Lewis, his wife and UCLA nursing school professor who was a frequent research collaborator.
Lewis also worked with Disney in 1978 on the design of a health pavilion at EPCOT Center in Florida.
-- times staff and wire reports
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