Mark H. Beers

Biography Born in Brooklyn, New York, Beers graduated from Tufts University and was awarded a degree in medicine in 1982 from the University of Vermont College of Medicine, and then performed his postgraduate medical training at Harvard University and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He was appointed to the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1987 as assistant professor of medicine and also served at the RAND Corporation from 1989 to 1992 as a senior natural scientist.

Beers criteria Beers led a team from Harvard University that studied 850 residents of Boston-area nursing homes, looking at the medications they were prescribed and their case histories. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1988, found that many had symptoms of mental confusion and tremors associated with use of antidepressants, antipsychotics and sedatives that they had been prescribed.

Merck Manuals Beers was named as associate editor of Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, a reference book for medical professionals published by Merck & Co., and co-edited The Merck Manual of Geriatrics.

His performance deteriorated over years due to vascular dementia attributable to diabetes and he resigned as editor in chief of The Merck Manuals in 2006 due to disability.

Personal life Beers was diagnosed with diabetes as a child. Both of his legs were amputated in the 1990s, after which he served as a volunteer counselor for amputees at Philadelphia's Magee Rehabilitation Hospital.

Beers had lived in Miami Beach and Fire Island, New York. He died at age 54 on February 28, 2009, in Miami Beach, Florida, due to complications of diabetes and was survived by his husband, Stephen K. Urice, as well as by his mother and a sister.