David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D.
Clinton Administration, 1993-1998
Clinton/GW Bush Administrations, 1998-2002
Dr. David Satcher completed his four-year term as the 16th Surgeon General of the United States in February 2002. He also served as Assistant Secretary for Health from February 1998 to January 2001, making him only the second person in history to have held both positions of Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health simultaneously.
In January 2002, Dr. Satcher was named the Director of the new National Center for Primary Care at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. He assumed the post in September 2002. Before assuming this post, Dr. Satcher served as a Senior Visiting Fellow with the Kaiser Family Foundation, where he spent time reflecting and writing about his experiences in government and consulting on public health programs.
From 1993 to 1998, Dr. Satcher served as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Before that, he was President of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1982 to 1993.
He was also professor and chairman of the Department of Community Medicine and Family Practice at Morehouse School of Medicine from 1979 to 1982, and he was on the faculty of the UCLA School of Medicine and Public Health and the King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he developed and chaired the King-Drew Department of Family Medicine. From 1977 to 1979, he served as the Interim Dean of the Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School. He also directed the King-Drew Sickle Cell Research Center for six years.
As Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health, Dr. Satcher led the Department's effort to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health, an initiative that was incorporated as one of the two major goals of Healthy People 2010, the nation's health agenda for the next 10 years. He also released Surgeon General's reports on tobacco and health; mental health, which was followed by supplements on children's mental health, health disparities and mental retardation, and culture, race and ethnicity; suicide prevention, which was followed by a national strategy to prevent suicide; oral health; sexual health and responsible sexual behavior; youth violence prevention; and overweight and obesity.
Dr. Satcher is a former Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and Macy Faculty Fellow. He is the recipient of over 30 honorary degrees and numerous distinguished honors, including top awards from the National Medical Association, the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and Ebony magazine. In 2000, he received the Didi Hirsch “Erasing the Stigma” Mental Health Leadership Award, and the National Association of Mental Illness Distinguished Service Award. In 1999, he received the Bennie Mays Trailblazer Award and the Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Award for Humanitarian Contributions to the Health of Humankind from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. In 1997, he received the New York Academy of Medicine Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dr. Satcher graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1963 and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1970 with election to Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. He did residency/fellowship training at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester, UCLA, and King-Drew. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Satcher would most like to be known as the Surgeon General who listened to the American people and responded with effective programs. His mission is to make public health work for all groups in this nation. He not only is a champion of promoting healthy lifestyles, he is also an avid jogger and enjoys tennis, gardening, and reading.
Born in 1941 in Anniston, Alabama, Dr. Satcher and his wife, Nola, a poet, reside in Atlanta, Georgia and Washington, DC. They have four grown children, all of whom he is very proud.
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