Dr. Kevin Bell, internal medicine residency alum, honored with new critical care unit

The values Kevin Bell, MD, honed as an internal medicine resident at the University of Wisconsin—showing up, working hard, and putting patients first—have guided a career of nearly five decades.

Now, almost 50 years after completing his residency, those values have come full circle: grateful patients helped fund a new critical care unit named in his honor.

Dr. Bell joined the University of Wisconsin Internal Medicine Residency Program in 1975 after graduating from Columbia University in New York City. While visiting academic medical centers across the country, he recalls that Madison immediately stood out.

“When we stopped at the University of Wisconsin in August, everyone was happy and cordial—very different from New York,” he says.

Dr. Bell spent four years in Madison—three as a resident and one as chief resident—during a period of growth for the program, including the move to the new University of Wisconsin Clinical Sciences Center (now University Hospital). 

When we stopped at the University of Wisconsin in August, everyone was happy and cordial—very different from New York.

Dr. Kevin Bell

Elected by his peers as Department of Medicine Teacher of the Year in 1978, he became the second recipient of the honor after Dennis Maki, MD, MS, professor emeritus, Infectious Disease.

In 1979, Dr. Bell returned to the East Coast, where he spent approximately ten years as director of the teaching program for outpatient internal medicine at Overlook Hospital (now Atlantic Health Overlook Medical Center) in Summit, New Jersey.

“During those years when I was getting home at midnight and heading back at 7 a.m., one of my inspirations was Dennis Maki and his tireless devotion to patients,” Dr. Bell says. “Because I remember when I did rotations with him, there was no such thing as a time limit—you just put your head down and kept working.”

One of my inspirations was Dennis Maki and his tireless devotion to patients.

Though he later transitioned primarily to solo practice, Dr. Bell has remained deeply connected to Atlantic Health Overlook—and to his patients there. 

In time, his relationships helped the hospital raise a significant portion of the $15 million needed to build the new, state-of-the-art Kevin E. Bell, MD Critical Care Unit that opened in 2025. 

A press release from Atlantic Health (Overlook’s parent organization) explains that the 22,000 square-foot unit is part of a major expansion to the hospital. It features private rooms that are “technology-enabled to provide for the 24-hour care needed by [the] sickest patients,” and allows “ICU and CCU health care providers to deliver extraordinary care in a thoughtfully designed environment.”

It is a fitting legacy for Dr. Bell—one that, much like the mentors who shaped his time at UW, is defined by clinical excellence and a lifelong commitment to caring for others.

Banner: Dr. Bell and his wife at the grand opening of the new critical care unit. Credit: Kevin Bell, MD.