THE HONORABLE LOUIS W. SULLIVAN, M.D.
Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., is chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Sullivan Alliance to Transform the Health Professions. In January 2020, in order to further increase diversity and transform health professions’ education and health delivery systems, the Board of the Sullivan Alliance voted to become a central program of the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC). In 2022, the AAHC merged into the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
He 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.
Dr. Sullivan became the founding dean and director of the Medical Education Program at Morehouse College in 1975. The program became The School of Medicine at Morehouse College in 1978, admitting its first 24 students to a two-year program in the basic medical sciences. In 1981, the school received provisional accreditation of its four-year curriculum leading to the M.D. degree, became independent from Morehouse College and was re-named Morehouse School of Medicine, with Dr. Sullivan as dean and president. MSM was fully accredited as a four-year medical school in April 1985. In a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (June 2010) Morehouse School of Medicine was ranked number one in social mission of all U.S. medical schools. Its graduates include former U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University President Wayne J. Riley.
Dr. Sullivan left MSM in 1989 to accept an appointment by President George H.W. Bush to serve as secretary of HHS. 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.
His efforts to improve the health and health behavior of Americans included (1) leading the effort to increase the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget from $8.0 billion in 1989 to $13.1 billion in 1993; (2) establishing at NIH, the Office of Research on Minority Health, which has become the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities; (3) inaugurating the Women’s Health Research Program at NIH; (4) the introduction of a new, improved Food and Drug Administration food label; (5) the release of Healthy People 2000, a guide for improved health promotion/disease prevention activities; (6) educating the public regarding the health dangers from tobacco use; (7) leading the successful effort to prevent the introduction of “Uptown,” a non-filtered, mentholated cigarette; (8) inaugurating a $100 million minority male health and injury prevention initiative; and (9) implementing greater gender and ethnic diversity in senior positions of HHS, including the appointment of the first female director of NIH, the first female (and first Hispanic) Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, the first African American Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, and the first African-American Administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (now the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services). In January 1993, he returned to MSM and resumed the office of president.
In March 2008, Dr. Sullivan was appointed to the new Grady Hospital Corporation Board of Trustees in Atlanta, Ga. In June 2008, Dr. Sullivan accepted an appointment to an Institute of Medicine Committee, “Improving the Organization of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to Advance the Health of Our Population.” 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.
A native of Atlanta, Dr. Sullivan 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). He is certified in internal medicine and hematology, holds a mastership from the American College of Physicians and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha academic honor societies.
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.
In1985, Dr. Sullivan became one of the founders of Medical Education for South African Blacks (MESAB). From 1994-2007, he served as chairman of the organization, which raised scholarship funds in the United States and South Africa for more than 10,000 Black health professions students, who are now physicians, nurses, dentists and other health professionals in South Africa.
Dr. and Mrs. E. Ginger Sullivan are sponsors of The Sullivan 5K Run/Walk for Health & Fitness on Martha’s Vineyard. Now in its 31st year, the popular event has raised more than $750,000 to benefit Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Firm believers in daily exercise, the Sullivan’s have walked in more than 50 countries throughout their travels. In recent years, they have added walks in Senegal, Nigeria, Gabon, South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Egypt, Morocco, Hungary, and Algeria.
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 — publication date: September 13, 2022).
Dr. Sullivan currently serves on the following corporate boards: United Therapeutics and Emergent Biosolutions. He also serves as co-chair of the Henry Schein Cares Foundation. He is retired from the boards of General Motors, 3M, Bristol Myers Squibb, CIGNA, Household International (now HBSC), Georgia Pacific, Equifax, Henry Schein, and BioSante Pharmaceuticals.
He is married to E. Ginger Sullivan, an attorney. The Sullivan’s have three grown children: Paul, a radiologist on the faculty of the University of Texas-Southwestern School of Medicine; Shanta, an actress and Halsted, a former writer and co producer of the popular NBC-TV comedy, “The Office” and who is executive producer of “Central Park,” an animated musical series on Apple-TV+.
* Winner, 2015 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Autobiography
* Finalist, 2015 QBR Phillis Wheatley Book Awards
* Georgia Center for the Book 2015 “Books All Georgians Should Read”
Revised June 2022