Meet eight Black physicians whose contributions to medicine are helping improve health inequities for all Americans.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD
Since becoming the first woman President and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) in 2014, Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD, has doubled the number of MD candidates. Under her leadership, MSM joined Accelerate Precision Health to advance precision medicine for everyone, particularly people of color.
The Harvard-trained OB/GYN is also a world-renowned researcher, dedicated to exploring infertility and addressing maternal mortality rates among Black women. As Dean of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Montgomery Rice founded and directed one of the first centers focused solely on studying conditions that disproportionately impact women of color.
Griffin Rodgers, MD
Director of the National Institute on Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) since 2007, Griffin Rodgers, MD, received his medical degree from Brown University in 1979. After completing a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in hematology, he began conducting research at NIDDK, part of the National Institutes of Health.
In 1998, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first-ever medication to treat Sickle Cell Disease (SCD), hydroxyurea, thanks to Rodgers’ research. In 2023, under his leadership, the Institute released Pathways to Health for All, a multistep research effort to address health inequities in the United States.
Deborah Prothrow-Stith, MD
Dean of the Charles R. Drew University College of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, Deborah Prothrow-Stith, MD, believes violence is a public health problem. As a resident working in the emergency room who witnessed acts and victims of violence, she began researching how to address it through education and prevention.
In 1991, she released Deadly Consequences, the first book on youth violence for a mass audience. Prothrow-Stith also created groundbreaking conflict-resolution curricula for children and teens that were ultimately adopted in schools across all 50 US states.
Her historic contributions include serving as Associate Dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In 1987, she became the first woman, first Black person, and youngest individual to serve as Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health. There, she expanded treatment for HIV/AIDS and substance use disorders and created the first Office of Violence Prevention in a state department of public health.
Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, MHS
In January 2021, Yale researcher and educator Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, MHS, became the first-ever presidential advisor to focus solely on combating race-related health inequities, spearheading the COVID-19 Equity Task Force. As Co-Chair of President-elect Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board, she helped shape the incoming administration’s pandemic strategy.
Today, she directs the Yale Equity Research and Innovation Center, which she founded in 2013, and a two-year health equity leadership program at the Yale School of Management. Her research includes developing a questionnaire that effectively measures patients’ experiences with discrimination in health care.
Alister Martin, MD, MPP
An emergency medicine physician, Harvard Medical School assistant professor, Harvard Kennedy School researcher, and advisor to the US Department of Health and Human Services, Alister Martin, MD, MPP, has helped the underserved on many fronts.
In 2017, Martin founded Get Waivered to help physicians obtain the then-required Drug Enforcement Agency waiver to prescribe buprenorphine, an effective Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) treatment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he co-founded an organization called GOTVax, using a get-out-the-vote framework to bring vaccines to under-resourced communities in Boston. Not long after, he was named a White House fellow for 2021-2022.
Among Martin’s most recent projects is Link Health, an outreach program that helps low-income patients gain Internet access for telehealth.
Selwyn M Vickers, MD
As President and CEO of the Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center in Manhattan, Selwyn M. Vickers, MD, impacts the care of thousands of patients each year. A world-renowned cancer surgeon and researcher, he became the first African American to head MSK in 2022. He had previously been President of the American Surgical Association and Dean of the UAB Heersink School of Medicine in Birmingham, Alabama.
Dedicated to health equity in both clinical care and academic research, Vickers helped establish Enhancing Minority Participation in Clinical Trials (EMPaCT), and the Center for Healthy African American Men through Partnerships (CHAAMPS), a first-ever academic-community collaboration to develop, implement, and evaluate interventions designed to improve Black men’s health.
David Satcher, MD, PhD
After earning MD and PhD degrees from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1970, David Satcher, MD, PhD, held administrative and teaching positions at both the UCLA School of Medicine and the School of Public Health. From 1982 to 1993, he served as President of Meharry Medical College in Nashville.
In 1993, Satcher became the first Black American to direct the Center for Disease Control (CDC). In 1998, he was appointed US Surgeon General. In that role, he focused on such crucial issues as tobacco use among minority groups and the need for school-based sex education to prevent disease and unplanned pregnancy.
After leaving government service, he founded the Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI) at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta addressing health disparities through research and leadership training.
James Hildreth Sr, MD, PhD
James Hildreth, MD, PhD, President and CEO of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, is a leader in the battle against HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. In 2021, President Biden appointed the Rhodes Scholar to his Health Equity Task Force where he assessed the groundbreaking COVID-19 vaccines submitted for FDA approval.
Hildreth had previously served as Dean of the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences and Associate Dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. A world-renowned researcher on HIV/AIDS, Hildreth has contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, 11 patents, and the discovery of pivotal aspects of the virus’s deadly power.
Under his leadership, Meharry received national recognition for establishing the first US School of Global Health. Further, in 2023, he launched a 10-year initiative to create the first genomics database of people of African ancestry for more equitable medical research and better treatments for Black populations worldwide.
