David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D.
Surgeon General

Dr. David Satcher is the 16th Surgeon General of the United States; his four-year term runs through February 2002.

From February 1998 to January 2001, he served as both Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health - only the second person in history to serve in both capacities. As Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health, Dr. Satcher provided Departmental leadership in eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health.

He has produced landmark Surgeon General Reports in suicide prevention, mental health, with a supplement on children's mental health, oral health and youth violence prevention.

Dr. Satcher served as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry from 1993 to 1998. Before that, he was president of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN. He chaired the Department of Community Medicine and Family Practice at the Morehouse School of Medicine for three years and was a faculty member of the UCLA School of Medicine and Public Health and the King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he also served as Dean and Department Chair. He also directed the King-Drew Sickle Cell Research Center for six years.

He is a graduate of Morehouse College and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and Graduate Studies. He did residency/fellowship training at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester, UCLA, and King-Drew. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and a Macy Faculty Fellow. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the American College of Physicians.

He is the recipient of many awards and over 20 honorary degrees. Dr. Satcher and his wife, Nola, have four grown children.