David Satcher

Physician and former US surgeon general and assistant secretary of health

• Born: March 2, 1941
• Birthplace: Anniston, Alabama

Physician and former US surgeon general and assistant secretary of health

In 1998, Satcher became the first Black American to serve as United States surgeon general. He was the second person to serve jointly as US surgeon general and assistant secretary of health. He brought controversial public health issues to national attention and created recommendations specifically intended to reduce health care disparities.

Areas of achievement: Government and politics; Medicine

Early Life

David Satcher was born on March 2, 1941, in Anniston, Alabama, to Wilmer and Anne Satcher. He grew up on a small farm with little access to medical care. His father, a foundry worker, and mother did not complete elementary school. Satcher was one of nine children, two of whom died in childhood. At the age of two, Satcher developed whooping cough and pneumonia. The town’s only Black physician came to the farm; Satcher acknowledges this doctor as his role model for pursuing a medical career.

Upon graduation from a racially segregated secondary school system, Satcher received a full scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1963. He attended Case Western Reserve Medical School in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was one of a small handful of Black students. Satcher completed a joint MD–PhD program in cytogenetics with Alpha Omega honors in 1970. At Case Western, he recruited Black medical students and other medical students of color and gave lectures on the needs of Black patients. Satcher then moved to the University of Rochester, New York, for a pediatrics residency.

Life’s Work

After two years of residency, Satcher moved to Los Angeles, California, for a position at the newly founded Martin Luther King, Jr., Hospital and Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School (later renamed King/Drew Medical Center). Satcher became the first employee at the institution to receive a National Institutes of Health grant to fund a national sickle cell disease research center. He headed the center for six years, mixing scientific research, clinical duties, and administrative responsibilities. Satcher completed a family practice residency through the University of California at Los Angeles in 1975 and developed the same residency program at King/Drew Medical Center, where he eventually became chair of the department.

In 1982, Satcher became president of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, a traditionally Black institution. Satcher was excited to train physicians to serve in underserved communities, but the institution’s financial woes and struggles related to racial health disparities were daunting. He rose above the challenges, worked to improve medical care in Nashville, and renovated Meharry’s Hubbard Hospital. Satcher then was appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (a post he held from 1993 to 1998) and administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease registry. He increased immunization levels among Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people in the US and raised awareness of violence prevention.

On February 13, 1998, Satcher was sworn in as the sixteenth surgeon general of the United States and jointly was appointed assistant secretary for health, making him only the second person to hold both positions simultaneously. Two of Satcher’s goals were closing the health care divide between minority groups and the majority population and increasing funding for disease prevention. He brought health conditions disproportionately affecting Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities to the forefront, including infant mortality and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). He also stirred controversy with several of his programs and recommendations, including a drug needle exchange program, comprehensive sex education, and suicide prevention. He served one term, which ended in 2002.

In 2002, Satcher returned to Atlanta. He directed the National Center for Primary Care at the Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) and trained primary care providers on early identification and treatment of mental health disorders. He also directed the MSM’s Center of Excellence on Health Disparities, which was founded in 2002. He served as Morehouse’s interim president from 2004 to 2006. In 2006 he became the founding director of MSM’s Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI), whose mission is to increase diversity among public health leaders and guide public policy toward health care equity.

In 2013 Satcher cofounded the African American Network Against Alzheimer’s. The organization is an advocacy group that aims to end Alzheimer’s disease by 2020 and to spread awareness of the disproportionate impact the disease has on African Americans. Satcher is an honorary cochair of the group.

In 2020, Satcher published My Quest for Health Equity: Notes on Learning While Leading, in which he draws on his fifty-year career to instruct readers how to take leadership roles in eliminating health disparities. In 2020, during the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Satcher criticized then president Donald Trump for politicizing the Centers for Disease Control and sought to address the disparate impact of the pandemic on Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities. In a December 2020 interview with NPR's Megna Chakrabarti for On Point, Satcher said, "As of 2021, Satcher continues to serve as founding director and senior adviser of SHLI and as a professor in MSM’s Community Health and Preventative Medicine department.

Satcher is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the American College of Physicians. He is a board member of several organizations and corporations, including the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Save the Children, the United Way of Atlanta, MetLife, and Johnson and Johnson. He has received numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Award for Humanitarian Contributions to the Health of Humankind, the National Association of Mental Illness Distinguished Service Award, and the New York Academy of Medicine Lifetime Achievement Award. Satcher and his wife, poet Nola Richardson, had four children. Richardson had Alzheimer's disease for about twenty years before her death in June 2019.

Significance

As US surgeon general, Satcher coined the phrase “elimination of health disparities” to describe his goal of bringing better health care to minority communities. The phrase became a common focal point in American health care policy and reform. Satcher took the stance that his job was not political—that he was a public servant responsible for making sound scientific recommendations to improve the overall public health. He issued more reports during his term than any other surgeon general. Satcher has fought throughout his career to encourage minority physicians to practice medicine and perform outreach in underserved communities. His work on minority issues at Case Western Reserve University laid the foundation for the school to become one of the top private medical schools in the nation with a significant minority student enrollment.

Bibliography

Baquet, Claudia R. “Hero: David Satcher, MD, Phd.” Journal. of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 25.1 Suppl (2014): 1–3. MEDLINE Complete. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

“David Satcher, MD, PhD.” HRET: Health Research & Educational Trust. Amer. Hospital Assn., 2006–2016. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Goode, Erica. “Disparities Seen in Mental Care for Minorities.” New York Times 27 Aug. 27, 2001. Print.

Korr, Mary. “Dr. David Satcher: From Alabama Farm to the Surgeon General’s Office.” Rhode Island Medical Journal 96.5 (2013): 57–59. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

Satcher, David. “David Satcher Takes Stock.” Interview by Fitzhugh Mullan. Health Affairs 21.6 (2002): 154–61. Print.

Satcher, David. “Race, Health and the Pandemic with Dr. David Satcher.” Interview by Meghna Chakrabarti and Anna Bauman. On Point, NPR, 2 December 2020, www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/12/02/race-health-equity-pandemic-david-satcher. Accessed 21 July 2021.

Satcher, David, Rubens J. Pamies, and Nancy N. Woelfl. Multicultural Medicine and Health Disparities. New York: McGraw, 2006. Print.