VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Irl Hirsch

Real Stories About Real People

MD Goes on Personal Mission to Educate Doctors, Patients on Diabetes

In 1964, Irl B. Hirsch, M.D., was diagnosed with diabetes at six years of age, and his parents became involved in the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in St. Louis, Missouri.  In his early years of volunteering, his time was primarily spent assisting his parents in the realm of fund raising and working at ADA camps around the country.  His mother, Gloria Hirsch, was a national board member and locally raised several million dollars for the Association.  Her passion was the ADA camp for children in St. Louis. She died of cancer in 2002, but before her death, the camp was renamed in her honor, Gloria Hirsch Camp for Diabetic Children.

As medical director of the University of Washington Diabetes Care Center in Seattle, Hirsch strives to always balance his time among patients and students/trainees.   He is considered the most enthusiastic of doctors when it comes to making hospital rounds and sharing the latest news from the diabetes research front.  He received a research grant (ADAGE: A1c Derived Average Glucose Examination) from ADA in January 2006. 

As an endocrinologist, Hirsch has been a professional member of ADA since his first year of medical school in 1980.  He claims he can never say “no” to volunteering.  However, when asked what he learned about others from volunteering, he had this to say: “There is always someone more passionate about diabetes than me.”

He has been active on camp committees in St. Louis, and then became very active with local Washington State activities in the 1990s.  He served on the local board in Seattle and later on the National Leadership Council.  Hirsch was chair of the local Professional Education Committee in the early 1990s, and, over the years, has become more involved at the national level of ADA.  He was chair of ADA’s Scientific Sessions Planning Committee in 2003 and served on the committee for two years before that.  In addition, he was chair of the ADA Post-Graduate course and served on the Professional Practice Committee in the mid-1990s and from 2004 to 2006.  He also is a past editor of Clinical Diabetes and current editor of DOC News.  Hirsch now serves on ADA's Board of Directors.

Linda Cann, ADA’s Managing Director of Professional Education, remarked, “I have worked for Irl for 20 years on various professional educational programs.  As chair for the Scientific Sessions for two years, he was responsible for directing, planning and execution of this important event that typically reaches more than 12,000 health care professionals.  He is fabulous to work with.  He is responsive, engaged, and he offers his expertise free of charge.”

His hobbies are racquetball, softball, hiking and biking.  He is an avid and loyal fan to both the St. Louis Cardinals and the Washington Huskies and his patients know they can always get him way behind schedule when they start talking about baseball.

Because of his own experience with diabetes, Hirsch brings enormous empathy to his practice by letting his patients know that he truly understands what they’re going through and what they need to do to manage their disease.  Diabetes has a significant impact on his family, as his brother and nephew also have diabetes.

His main motivation today is the lack of adequate care for the majority of people with diabetes in the United States.  His main passion is teaching both doctors and patients how to better treat and manage the disease.

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