Colonel Edward P. Horvath, Jr. M.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Ed Horvath
Iraq Veteran, Colonel and Physician

Colonel Edward P. Horvath, Jr. M.D., M.P.H.

Colonel Edward P. Horvath, Jr. is a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps, having served three deployments in Iraq. He has been a physician for 50 years, specializing in internal medicine, occupational medicine and pulmonary disease.

His presentation is called “Good Medicine in Bad Places” which describes his experience as an Army doctor in the Iraq War during the course of three deployments from 2005 to 2011.

This intensely personal and gripping account transports the audience from the safe environs of peacetime America to the battlefields of the Middle East. There they will come face-to-face with the realities of war – wounded soldiers, maimed Iraqi children, a brutal enemy – and come to question their beliefs about war, terrorism and forgiveness.

The 45 minute talk is narrated with a PowerPoint format. It has been presented over 60 times during the past decade throughout North America, the Middle East and Japan.  The presentation avoids discussing politics, military strategy or weapons systems. It emphasizes the human aspects of war, particularly the extraordinary courage, commitment and compassion of doctors, nurses and medics who risk their own lives to save the lives of others.”

Brief Biography

Colonel Edward P. Horvath, Jr. is a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps, having served three deployments in Iraq. He has been a physician for 50 years, specializing in internal medicine, occupational medicine and pulmonary disease. During his last deployment in 2011, Col. Horvath was Task Force Deputy Commander and Chief of Clinical Services for a combat support hospital near Tikrit, Iraq and was responsible for the medical care of over 20,000 U.S. soldiers in the northern half of Iraq. Earlier at the same base, he staffed the emergency room and outpatient clinic, caring for U.S. soldiers, Iraqi civilians and enemy combatants.

Horvath first went to war in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004 at age 59, after a 26-year break in military service, having served as a U.S. Navy officer earlier in his career. He returned to the military, in part, inspired by his two sons, who both joined the Navy following 9/11. During his first deployment, he served as Deputy Commander at a hospital set within a sprawling detention complex later recognized as the birthplace of ISIS. Col. Horvath was also stationed at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison hospital and in Baghdad on special assignment.

For his actions in Iraq, Col. Horvath was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and later received one of the nation’s highest military honors, the Legion of Merit. He currently serves as a primary care physician at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Cleveland.

Previously, Horvath held positions at top medical centers including the Cleveland Clinic. He also served as Medical Director for major corporations such as BP America and General Electric. In addition, he has held academic appointments at several universities and is a recognized research scientist and educator. He has authored more than 30 publications on topics including toxicology, environmental lung disease and military medicine. He was also contributing author and co-editor of a major textbook, “Occupational Medicine.”

Col. Horvath holds a medical degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Minnesota. He received the American Red Cross Hero Award in 2013 for extraordinary courage in saving lives. He has been married to his wife, Joy, for 46 years, and they have three children. Their daughter is a physician and their two sons are U.S. Navy officers.

In 2018, he delivered his presentation, “Good Medicine in Bad Places,” to a meeting of the American Association of Laparoscopic Gynecologists (AAGL). This was an international congress with over 2,000 attendees.

His memoir, “Good Medicine, Hard Times,” was published by The Ohio State University Press. This book is essentially an expanded written version of his oral presentation and has been favorably reviewed by the “Wall Street Journal.”

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