Events Calendar
NAO Public Policy presents: The Honorable Louis W. Sullivan, M.D.
Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., health policy pioneer and minority health advocate, presents to AHEC network Oct. 24
The honorable Louis W. Sullivan, MD, former Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, and co-author of the book, We'll Fight It Out Here: A History of the Ongoing Struggle for Health Equity will speak to AHEC Staff, AHEC Scholars, and our guests on Oct 24 regarding the history of and his insights into the ongoing struggle for health equity. Register HERE
Dr. Sullivan served as chair of the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities from 2002-2009 and was co-chair of the President’s Commission on HIV and AIDS from 2001-2006. With the exception of his tenure as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 1989 to 1993, Dr. Sullivan was president of Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) -- the only predominantly Black medical school in the U.S. established in the 20th Century -- for more than two decades. On July 1, 2002, he retired and was appointed president emeritus.
President George H.W. Bush appointed Dr. Sullivan to serve on as secretary of HHS (1989-93). In this cabinet position, Dr. Sullivan managed the federal agency responsible for the major health, welfare, food and drug safety, medical research and income security programs serving the American people.
A native of Atlanta, he graduated magna cum laude from Morehouse College in 1954, and earned his medical degree, cum laude, from Boston University School of Medicine in 1958. His postgraduate training included internship and residency in internal medicine at New York Hospital – Cornell Medical Center (1958-60), a clinical fellowship in pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital (1960-61), and a research fellowship in hematology at the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory of Harvard Medical School, Boston City Hospital (1961-63).
Dr. Sullivan was instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School from 1963-64, and assistant professor of medicine at Seton Hall College of Medicine from 1964-66. In 1966, he became co-director of hematology at Boston University Medical Center and, a year later, founded the Boston University Hematology Service at Boston City Hospital. Dr. Sullivan remained at Boston University until 1975, holding positions as assistant professor of medicine, associate professor of medicine, and professor of medicine.
Dr. Sullivan is the founding president of the Association of Minority Health Professions Schools (AMHPS). He is a former member of the Joint Committee on Health Policy of the Association of American Universities and the National Association of Land Grant Colleges and Universities.
In 2021, Boston University School of Medicine established the Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., Professor of Medicine (BUSM). The same year, BUSM created the Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., Academic Leadership Program, a selective program for high potential faculty from Underrepresented Groups in Medicine who would benefit from protected time to complete a project that will advance their careers. In 2021, Weill Cornell Medicine launched the Dr. Louis Wade Sullivan Department of Medicine Lectureship, a newly named lecture in support of diversity and health equity.
Dr. Sullivan is the recipient of more than 70 honorary degrees, including an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
Dr. Sullivan is the author of The Morehouse Mystique: Becoming a Doctor at the Nation’s Newest African American Medical School (with Marybeth Gasman, 2012, Johns Hopkins University Press), his autobiography Breaking Ground: My Life in Medicine* (with David Chanoff, 2014, University of Georgia Press) and We’ll Fight it Out Here: A History of the Ongoing Struggle for Health Equity; How a coalition of Black health professions schools made health equity a national issue** (with David Chanoff, Johns Hopkins University Press.)