Mary Eliza Mahoney Becomes the First Black Nurse in America
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American to study and work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States.
Richard H. Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS (First Hispanic Male Surgeon General, DHHS)
Richard H. Carmona was born in 1949 and raised in New York City. He dropped out of high school and enlisted in the US Army in 1967, where he earned his General Equivalency Diploma. Through his service with the US Army Special Forces in Vietnam, Carmona became a decorated combat veteran.
M. Joycelyn Elders, MD (First African American and the Second Woman to Become U.S. Surgeon General)
Minnie Joycelyn Jones was born in Schaal, Arkansas in 1933 to sharecropper parents. She and her seven younger siblings often worked in the cotton fields, frequently missing school, primarily during harvest time, September to December. Joycelyn Jones entered Philander Smith College, an historically Black college in Little Rock, AR, at the age of 15 on a scholarship from United Methodist Church.
Antonia Coello Novello, MD, MPH, Dr.PH (First Woman and the First Hispanic to Become U.S. Surgeon General)
Antonio Coello Novello was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico in 1944. She matriculated at the University of Puerto Rico from 1961–1965, earning a B.S. degree, and from 1965—1970, earning an MD degree. While in medical school, she met and married Joseph Novello, a US Navy doctor. Dr. Novello trained for her subspecialty in pediatric nephrology at the University of Michigan, where she was the first woman to be named Intern of the Year.
Louis Wade Sullivan, MD (Second African-American U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services)
Louis Wade Sullivan was born in 1933 and grew up in rural Georgia. He matriculated at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA, graduating in 1954 with a BS in premedical programs.
David Satcher, MD, PhD (First African-American Named to Head the CDC, and First African-American Man Named Surgeon General, HHS)
Robert L. Satcher, Jr., MD, Class of 1994 (First Orthopedic Surgeon and First Black Male Physician in Space)
Graduated Harvard Medical School in 1994
Born in 1965, Robert Lee “Bobby” Satcher, Jr. grew up in Hampton, VA. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1994 and his BS and PhD in chemical engineering from MIT in 1986 and 1993, respectively. Dr. Satcher realized the third part of his dream to become an engineer, physician and astronaut in 2006.
Deborah Prothrow Stith, MD, Class of 1979 (First Woman and First African-American Commissioner of Public Health, Commonwealth of Massachusetts)
Graduated Harvard Medical School Class of 1979
JudyAnn Bigby, MD, Class of 1978 (First Black Woman Appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services, Commonwealth of Massachusetts)
Graduated Harvard Medical School Class of 1978
George Franklin Grant, DMD (First African American Faculty Member at Harvard University)
George Franklin Grant, DMD, the second African American to graduate from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, became the first African American faculty member at Harvard Universi