Darvin (Scott) Smith, MD, MSc, DTM&H, FIDSA
Scott grew up in Boulder Colorado and attended medical school at the University of Colorado.
He went to public health school at Harvard University where an interest in Tropical Public Health was further developed, leading to a yearlong study as a Fulbright Scholar in Cali Colombia, where he studied improved diagnostic technologies to understand the epidemiology of leishmaniasis, and onchocerciasis (River Blindness), a leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide.
He completed residency then a Fellowship at Stanford University in Medicine then Infectious Disease & Geographic Medicine.
He taught at Stanford Medical School and directed a course in Human Biology entitled “Parasites & Pestilence” for over 20 years. He was presented the Bloomfield award in recognition of excellence in teaching of clinical medicine at Stanford School of Medicine.
Since 1999 he has organized local then regional then Kaiser Nationally sponsored Travel Medicine Conferences to prepare travelers for safe international trips. He served as Chief of Infectious Disease & Geographic Medicine at Kaiser Redwood City before retiring in 2023 after the COVID pandemic. He concluded his tenure on a high note, serving as a subject matter expert and on the regional task force for COVID and Influenza vaccination.
He has served locally on the San Mateo County Mosquito Abatement District Board as trustee and board member since 2012 for his town of Hillsborough. He currently serves on the Professional Education Committee as Co-Chair in the ISTM (International Society of Travel Medicine), organizing webinars and Update Courses. He continues working in the clinical sector for the International non-profit organization since the tsunami in 2004 with MENTOR-Initiative leading training workshops about Malaria and Vector-borne diseases as well as Emergency Responses, in Indonesia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Haiti, and Myanmar.
He has appeared on The Doctors Show (CBS), Animal Planet, Discovery Channel and National Geographic (and even the Tyra Bank’s Show in New York!) about several unusual parasitic diseases in humans including leishmaniasis, tapeworm, leprosy and hookworm…
