Timothy R.B. Johnson, M.D.

Timothy R.B. Johnson, M.D. (Residency 1979), died on May 27, 2025, at age 75. He was the Bates Professor of Diseases of Women and Children during his tenure as chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology from 1993 to 2018. He also was an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and professor of women’s and gender studies at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Johnson received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from U-M before completing his medical studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1975. He returned to U-M for residency and then held a fellowship in maternal fetal medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. After four years of service in the U.S. Air Force, he returned to Johns Hopkins before joining the faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School in 1993.

“He built one of the premier departments in the country,” says John DeLancey (M.D. 1977, Residency 1981), the Norman F. Miller Professor of Gynecology.

Johnson was a visionary physician, educator, and leader in maternal health, medical education, and health equity around the world.

“Tim was always a fierce advocate for women,” says Cheryl Moyer, Ph.D., M.P.H., who worked with Johnson both as a student and later as a collaborator in Ghana. “He used to wear a little button that said, ‘Listen to Women.’ … [H]e had a really strong sense of what was right. And he never shied from that. I think at the end of the day, he had a huge heart.”

A chance trip to Ghana in the late 1980s opened Johnson’s eyes to the tragedy of many women dying in childbirth. At the time, Ghanaian students who wanted to be obstetricians and gynecologists had to train abroad, and most never returned.

Johnson and his colleagues developed an in-country program for obstetricians and gynecologists to train health care workers and keep this expertise in Ghana. Johnson’s work led to Ghana’s first in-country OB-GYN residency program. A 2022 study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found that of the 245 OB-GYN physicians trained in the program, 241 continue to practice in Ghana.

In his global health work, Johnson avoided a one-way “helping” mentality. Moyer recounts a colleague’s experience during a complicated delivery at U-M. A visiting resident from Ghana, where C-sections are less readily available, talked the care team through a maneuver that enabled the patient to continue with a vaginal delivery.

“Examples like that remind us that there are many different ways to accomplish things, and just because we have all this technology doesn’t necessarily mean we do it better,” says Moyer, who is associate chair of the Department of Learning Health Sciences and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical School, as well as professor of health management and policy at the School of Public Health.

Both the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Center for Global Health Equity have created funds to honor Johnson’s memory and carry his vision forward.

The Timothy R.B. Johnson OBGYN Global Health Fund, created by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, will continue the department’s work in Ghana. The Timothy R.B. Johnson, M.D. Student Award in Global Health Fund, created by the Center for Global Health Equity, will recognize a student who exemplifies a deep and sustained commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration and global engagement.

Based on a Philanthropy News story and a Michigan Medicine obituary.