May 22, 2000
BIRMINGHAM, AL — U.S. Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., will be the commencement speaker and receive an Honorary Doctor of Science degree at the 2 p.m. June 4 graduation ceremonies at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Bartow Arena. Some 1,000 of the 2,000 UAB students eligible for graduation will take part in the graduation ceremonies.
Satcher, an Alabama native, physician, scholar and lifelong public health advocate, was sworn in on February 13, 1998, as the 16th Surgeon General of the United States and as Assistant Secretary for Health. Satcher was Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta from November 15, 1993, until his appointment. He is the first African-American man to hold the position of Surgeon General and only the second person to simultaneously hold both that office and the office of Assistant Secretary.
Satcher was born in 1941 in rural Anniston. At the time of his graduation from high school, he was only the third student from the school to go on to college. After graduating from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1963, where was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Satcher became the first African-American student at Case Wester Reserve University to earn a medical degree and a Ph.D. simultaneous.
As Surgeon General, Satcher has spearheaded initiatives to help move the United States toward a balanced community health system, including health promotion, disease prevention, early detection and universal access to care. He has championed the removal of disparities in health care and research on the basis of race and ethnicity, and urged the adoption of a global view of community health.
As CDC Director, Satcher led the agency responsible for promoting health and preventing disease, injury, and premature death. CDC’s eleven Centers, Institutes, and Offices work closely with local, state, and other federal agencies to protect the public health. During his tenure at CDC, Satcher initiated programs that increased childhood immunization rates to 78 percent in 1996 from 55 percent in 1992, upgraded the nation’s capability to respond to emerging infectious diseases, and laid the groundwork for a new Early Warning System to detect and prevent food-borne illnesses.
Under Satcher’s direction, the CDC placed a greater emphasis on disease prevention. For example, the CDC’s comprehensive breast and cervical cancer screening program increased from 18 to 50 states and the agency highlighted the importance of physical activity and good health by encouraging Americans to become more physically active in the landmark Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health.
On July 23, 1997, at a White House ceremony celebrating the fact that vaccine-preventable childhood illnesses had fallen to the lowest level in American history, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala called Satcher one of the CDC’s "immunization heroes," noting that "his own battle with childhood whooping cough inspired him to become a distinguished scientist, physician and public health leader."
Satcher also was Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), administering the HHS agency created by the Superfund law to prevent or mitigate adverse human health effects and diminished quality of life resulting from exposure to hazardous substances in the environment. He also served as a consultant to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s task force on health care reform and advised President Bill Clinton on the public apology to survivors of the government’s Tuskegee experiment in which black men with syphilis were left untreated.
Satcher was President of Meharry Medical College from 1982 until he was named Director of CDC. Before joining Meharry, he was professor and chairman of the Department of Community Medicine and Family Practice at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.
Satcher is a former faculty member of the UCLA School of Medicine and the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles. He developed and chaired King/Drew’s Department of Family Medicine and, from 1977-1979, was interim dean of the Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School. He also directed the King/Drew Sickle Cell Center for six years.
His many honors include election to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the Breslow Award in Public Health, and the prestigious Dr. Nathan B. Davis Award in the category of Executive Branch Member Serving by Presidential Appointment for outstanding public service to advance public health. In 1997 Dr. Satcher received the New York Academy of Medicine Lifetime Achievement Award and in 1999 the Bennie Mays Trailblazer Award and the Jimmy and Roslyn Carter Award for Humanitarian Contributions to the Health of Humankind from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Satcher has also received the James D. Bruce Memorial Award for distinguished contributions in preventive medicine from the American College of Physicians, the John Steams Award for Lifetime Achievement in Medicine from The New York Academy of Medicine, and the Surgeon General’s Medallion for significant and noteworthy contributions to the health of the nation.