Irwin Eskind was born in
Nashville, Tennessee on January 25, 1925, to Florence
and Herbert Eskind. He was educated in the Nashville
public schools and received his B.A. and M.D. degrees from
Vanderbilt University in 1945 and 1948.
From
Vanderbilt, Eskind went to Boston City Hospital, completing a
residency in internal medicine in 1951. He spent a third
year in residency at Vanderbilt studying internal
medicine under Drs. Hugh Morgan and Rudolph H.
Kampmeier. After serving two years in the U.S. Army
Medical Corps, Dr. Eskind spent another year in Boston
at the Lahey Clinic as a fellow in Gastroenterology.
In 1954 Irwin Eskind returned to Nashville to establish
a private internal medicine practice and served as a member
of the medical staff of Vanderbilt and St. Thomas
Hospitals. Dr. Eskind also became a successful businessman, helping to found Hospital
Affiliates International, which was sold in 1977 for $76 million, and Health America Corporation.
Dr. Eskind
and his wife Annette have been longtime supporters of
the Vanderbilt Medical Center and the Nashville
community. Dr. Eskind served as a member of the VUMC Board
for over twenty years, and his vision for health care and
substantial financial support has greatly influenced the
direction and prominence of the medical center. He was also a longtime member of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust, serving as a member of the Executive, Budget, and Campaign Committees. Dr. Eskind was a generous supporter of the Blair School of Music, the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, the Nursing School's Julia Hereford Society, and the Friends of the Library. The biomedical library, completed
in 1994, and comprehensive diabetes center, opened in
2005, both of which bear Irwin and Annette Eskind's names, attest to Dr. and Mrs. Eskinds'
dedication to Vanderbilt.
Dr. Eskind’s two sons,
Drs. Jeffrey and Steven Eskind, have established the
Irwin B. Eskind Symposium on Diabetes Care and Research,
which will be an annual event held at Vanderbilt.
