Neil Barnett Shulman is an American doctor and medical writer, who is Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at Emory University. He has conducted and published clinical research on hypertension and is the co-founder of the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks. He is the author of many books promoting medical literacy for both adults and children, as well as humor and children's books. He is the associate producer of the 1991 film Doc Hollywood, based on one of his books.
Shulman graduated from Emory University School of Medicine in 1971, after which he began teaching at the same institution. He has conducted research and published a variety of papers on the field of hypertension, funded at the level of around $8 million by the National Institutes of Health.
In 1986 Shulman co-founded the International Society of Hypertension in Blacks (ISHIB) together with Wilbur Dallas Hall and Elijah Sanders. Through its annual research conference, this society brings the latest approaches to cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment to health care professionals in the West and the Third World. Shulman also helped launch ISHIB's peer-reviewed quarterly journal, Ethnicity & Disease, and the Heart to Heart Program which brought children from developing countries to the United States for life-saving heart surgery.
Shulman is chairman of the board of Patch Adams’ Gesundheit! Institute, and an advisory board member of Global H.E.E.D., a non-profit organization founded by former students of Emory University, Zain Ahmed '08C and Sonny Bandyopadhyay '07C to promote development, medicine, and public health in Guatemala.
Shulman is a patient advocate who has taken an active role on behalf of healthcare consumers and patients with limited access to care. Shulman founded the Medical Volunteerism Conference in 2010 which met at Emory University with over 2,000 international attendants in that year. In 2011 the summit was held again, this time called the Global Health and Humanitarian Summit. He played an active role on behalf of patients affected by the closing of the dialysis clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, GA, which ultimately led to a favorable outcome for the affected patients. He was a key contributor to the 2013 Global Health and Humanitarian Summit. held at Emory University on April 12, 2013 - April 14, 2013.