Dr. Berk is the author or co-author of over 150 peer-reviewed publications and four textbooks. His publications have been cited 3,700 times and he has an h-index of 28. He has served on the NIH Special Advisory Panel on the evaluation of vaccines against infections in the elderly, on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, and as a reviewer for most Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease journals. He has served on the Board of Directors Nominating Committee for the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and chaired the AAMC community-based deans subcommittee for eight years. Recently, both his editorials on wearing a facemask and dealing with the issue of COVID-19 in nursing homes and have been circulated nationally by the AAMC. Dr. Berk has been recognized for many achievements throughout his distinguished career. His teaching ability was well-recognized at East Tennessee State University, where he received the medical school’s Teacher of the Year Award ten times and the university’s Distinguished Faculty Award. The American College of Physicians bestowed the title of Laureate in Medicine on Dr. Berk in 1998, and he was elected to the national board of Alpha Omega Alpha in 1999. In 2006, his memoir entitled Anatomy of a Kidnapping was published by Texas Tech Press and received the 2011 Forward Reviews Book of the year Award (silver). In 2012 he was elected Distinguished Alumni by Boston University School of Medicine, and had an endowed University Medical Center chair named in his honor. In 2019 he received the Department of Medical Education teaching award for the infectious disease course.