Graduated Harvard Medical School Class of 1974
Dr. Talmadge D. King Jr. is dean of the University of California San Francisco Medical School. He grew up in Darien, Georgia and attended Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. After attending the Pre-Summer Matriculation Program, where he met and worked with Dr. Alvin Poussaint, Dr. Edwin Fushpan, and Dr. David Potter, Dr. King attended Harvard Medical School beginning in 1970 and earned his medical degree in 1974. Dr. King's research has focused on inflammatory and immunologic lung injury. His bibliography comprises over 300 publications, and he is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Association of American Physicians, American Clinical and Climatological Association and the Fleischner Society. He is a master of the American College of Physicians and fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians.
“I grew up and went to school in a segregated, small school in Darien and graduated from high school there in 1966.”
“My interest in medicine probably started early, but I didn’t articulate out lout that I wanted to be a doctor until I was in college.”
“I did the Harvard Health Career Summer Program in, I think it must have been ’68, or ’69, … that was when I met Alvin Poussaint, and Furshpan, and Potter.”
“At the time, the big issues were school busing, and integration in Boston, and it was at a time when it was pretty tense living in Boston as a black person.”
“I always realized that I had to actually work hard and keep pushing so that I could catch up and begin to excel in my work, and so I spent a lot of time studying, and paying attention.”
“I think I started off thinking that I would want to do general surgery, but honestly, I didn’t find a surgeon that I could connect with and liked until I was a senior, and then by that time I decided I would do internal medicine.”
“Because I knew what I knew, and I worked hard to learn what I didn’t know, I actually realized that I could do as good a job as anybody, so I just kept going.”
“And you know, I try to carry with me, carry forward the kindness that they showed me in the work that I do now.”