Friends, family and colleagues created this fund in 2005 to honor Professor Emeritus Franklin L. DeBusk, supports the pediatric lectureship program.

Dr. DeBusk was born in 1922. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida in 1943 and attended Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, MD. He completed his internship and residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital, a fellowship in Ambulatory Pediatrics at Tulane University, and also served as a captain in the US Army as Chief of Pediatrics.

Dr. DeBusk began his private practice in 1952 in pediatrics at the Medical Center Clinic in Pensacola, FL, where he remained until 1966. That same year, he moved to Gainesville and went into private practice with Dr. Tom Brill and Dr. George A. Dell. He then joined the faculty at the UF College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics.

Dr. DeBusk served as Division Chief of General Pediatrics from 1966 to 1985. He continued his outreach work with medical students and residents, running clinics in rural North Florida until retiring in 1994. He was nationally known for his research on Progeria, a disease that causes premature aging in children.

Dr. DeBusk passed away in 2007. He was preceded in death by his wife, Elizabeth.