The Black Scholars Index » Med

Keith L. Black, MD – Chairman and Professor, Department of Neurosurgery Director, Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute

Leshell Hatley — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:58:11 +0000

Keith L. Black, MD serves as Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery and Director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He also holds the title of (Full) Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery. An internationally renowned neurosurgeon and scientist, Dr. Black joined Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in July 1997 and was awarded the Ruth and Lawrence Harvey Chair in Neuroscience in November of that year.

Career

Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Black served on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) faculty for 10 years where he was a (Full) Professor of Neurosurgery. In 1992 he was awarded the Ruth and Raymond Stotter Chair in the Department of Surgery and was Head of the UCLA Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program.

Pioneering Research

Dr. Black pioneered research on designing ways to open the blood-brain barrier, enabling chemotherapeutic drugs to be delivered directly into the tumor. His work in this field received the Jacob Javits award from the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council of the National Institutes of Health in June 2000. Dr. Black, along with patients undergoing the first clinical trials of the drug RMP-7, was profiled in 1996 on the PBS program, The New Explorers, in an episode called “Outsmarting the Brain”. Below is a clipped from BET.com posted just a few days ago:

Dr. Black’s other groundbreaking research has focused on developing a vaccine to enhance the body’s immune response to brain tumors, use of gene arrays to develop molecular profiles of tumors, the use of optical technology for brain mapping, and the use of focused microwave energy to noninvasively destroy brain tumors. He was featured on the cover of Time magazine in the Fall 1997 special edition “Heroes of Medicine”.

Dr. Black serves on the editorial boards of the Neurological Research, Gene Therapy and Molecular Biology, Neurosurgery Quarterly and Frontiers In Bioscience. He was on the National Institutes of Health’s Board of Scientific Counselors for Neurological Disorders and Stroke and was appointed to the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council of the National Institutes of Health from 2000 to 2004. He was also selected as a committee member of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine Independent Citizens Oversight Committee from 2004-2006. He is also a member of numerous professional societies, including the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Neurosurgical Society of America and the Academy of Neurological Surgery. He also is a Founding Member of the North American Skull Base Society.
Dr. Black has a unique ability to combine cutting-edge research and an extremely busy surgical practice. Since 1987, he has performed more than 5,000 operations for resection of brain tumors.

In 2009 Black published his autobiography, co-authored with Arnold Mann, entitled Brain Surgeon. New York Times reviewer Abigail Zuger described the book as a “fascinating, if somewhat stilted, memoir”.The Publishers Weekly review commented that the book

“examines racial hurdles he had to leap to become a neurosurgeon” and “alternat[es] incisive writing about incisions with his personal memoir, insightful and inspirational.”

Early Life and Education

Keith Black was born in Tuskegee, Alabama. His mother was a teacher and his father was the principal at a racially segregated elementary school in Auburn, Alabama; unable to integrate the student body, Black’s father instead integrated the faculty, raised standards, and brought more challenging subjects to the school. Unwilling to send their son to the substandard segregated high school in Auburn, Black’s parents found new jobs and relocated the family to Shaker Heights, Ohio. Black attended Shaker Heights High School. Already interested in medicine, Black was admitted to an apprenticeship program for minority students at Case Western Reserve University, and then became a teenaged lab assistant for Frederick Cross and Richard Jones (inventors of the Cross-Jones artificial heart valve) at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cleveland. At 17, he won an award in a national science competition for research on the damage done to red blood cells in patients with heart-valve replacements. It was during this time that he published his first scientific paper, which earned a Westinghouse Science Award. He completed an accelerated college program at the University of Michigan and earned both his undergraduate and medical degrees in six years. He completed his internship in general surgery and residency in neurological surgery at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor.

To learn more about Dr. Black, please view his CV here.

For an appointment, a second opinion or more information, please call 1-800-CEDARS-1 (1-800-233-2771) or e-mail the center.

Louis W. Sullivan, M.D.: Founding Dean and 1st President of Morehouse School of Medicine

Leshell Hatley — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:33:10 +0000

Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., is the founding Dean and first President of Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM). 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 MSM for more than two decades. On July 1, 2002, he left the presidency, but continues to serve on the MSM Board of Trustees, to teach, and to assist in national fund-raising activities on behalf of the school.

Education

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. He is certified in internal medicine and hematology (the study of blood, the blood-forming organs, and blood diseases).

Career

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- 65. 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 joined the Boston University School of Medicine in 1966 and remained until 1975, holding positions as assistant professor of medicine, associate professor of medicine, and professor of medicine.

Starting Morehouse School of Medicine

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 became independent from Morehouse College and became Morehouse School of Medicine, with Dr. Sullivan as Dean and President. In 1983, MSM became a member of the Atlanta University Center. MSM was fully accredited as a four year medical school in April 1985 and awarded its first 16 M.D. degrees in May of that year.

Serving as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Dr. Sullivan left MSM in 1989 to accept an appointment by President George H.W. Bush to head HHS. In this post, 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. In January 1993, he returned to MSM and resumed the office of president.

Service

Dr. Sullivan is Chairman of the board of the National Health Museum in Washington, D.C. and is also Chairman of the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce (funded by the Kellogg Foundation). He also serves as Chair of the President’s Commission on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and is Co-Chair of the President’s Commission on HIV and AIDS.

A member of numerous medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the National Medical Association, Dr. Sullivan was the founding President of the Association of Minority Health Professions Schools. 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.

He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

Watch a clip from his speaking tour entitled “The Symphony of Health Care Delivery” – an extremely relevant message!

Stephen Stafford II: Morehouse's 13 Year Old Scholar

Leshell Hatley — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:02:12 +0000

As a 13-year-old, Lithonia resident Stephen Stafford II can usually be found sitting in front of the television playing video games or playing his drum set. But Stafford is no typical 13-year old – he’s a college student. The triple-major child prodigy is becoming a sensation at Morehouse College.

“I’ve never taught a student as young as Stephen, and it’s been amazing,” said computer science professor Sonya Dennis. “He’s motivating other students to do better and makes them want to step up their game.”

“When I saw how much knowledge Stephen has at such a young age, I wondered what I had been doing with my life,” laughed third-year student, Eric Crawford. A psychology major and computer science minor, Crawford wanted to step up his game so much that he got Stephen to tutor him. “Even though I’m older, Stephen is like a mentor and my elder in computer science,” said Crawford.

“Eric’s a really fun person to be around, and we have a good time together,” said Stafford.

Crawford added, “Stephen has a lot of patience with me. I got a 95 in the class because of Stephen.”

Even at age 11 when Stafford started at Morehouse, he got the highest score in his pre-calculus class. “He breezes through whatever I throw at him. If it’s an hour lab, he can do it in 20 or 30 minutes,” said Dennis.

Stafford said he isn’t nervous about studying with students much older than himself. “I just do what I always did. I show up, I do the work, and I go home,” he said.

When talking to Stafford, it’s easy to forget his age. But his age shows when he’s playing video games or even at dinner, where he eats while also trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Still, Stafford finds it hard to relate to teens his age. “I relate better to Eric…most kids my age don’t know when to stop playing around and when to be serious,” he said.

Stafford’s mother, Michelle Brown-Stafford, home-schooled both her children (Stephen has an older sister also in college) and believes that parental involvement is essential for students to excel. But when she realized her son was starting to teach her instead of being taught, she knew he needed to be in a college environment.

“It was surreal because on one hand he’s talking about technical things I didn’t even understand, and on the other hand he was asking me to come watch Sponge Bob with him. So it was bittersweet to let him go.”

Brown-Stafford wondered if there were other parents who shared her experiences with a gifted child, so she helped found a support group: www.gifted-spirit.com.

And the Morehouse family has become a support group for Stafford, personifying the African proverb about it taking a village to raise a child. Stafford is too young to stay on campus, so his mother picks him up and drops him off each day. The students protect him and make a point not to curse or discuss certain mature issues around him, according to his mother and Stafford. Even the staff of Jazzman’s Café, where Stafford tutors Crawford, helps nurture Stephen into becoming a “Morehouse Renaissance Man”–well-spoken, well-dressed, well-read, well-traveled, and well-balanced. The cafe’s general Manager, Darren Page, added an unofficial principle: well-fed. “A Morehouse Man cannot study on an empty stomach,” said Page. So whenever Stafford comes to Jazzman’s, Page gives up his own employee meal for the 13-year-old.

It seems that everyone wants to be a part of helping Stafford graduate in 2012, and go on to Morehouse School of Medicine. And because of a Georgia law that requires a student to be 16 to graduate high school, he’ll be getting his high school diploma the same year he receives his college degrees in math, computer science and pre-med.

“Kids will live up to your expectations. But I ultimately want Stephen to be happy,” said Stephen Stafford Sr. Brown-Stafford added, “I want him to be well-rounded and still connect with kids his own age, so we put him in DeKalb County’s 4-H Club and other programs.” She added that she’s thankful to the Morehouse family for embracing her son.

“I want to see what Stephen becomes 10 years from now,” said Crawford. Page added, “I want to be at his graduation. And then I want to walk by and touch the [campus] statue of Dr. Martin Luther King and recognize I had a role in [Stephen] walking in Martin Luther King’s footsteps.” And how fitting, since Dr. King entered Morehouse at age 15.

So to put a spin on Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Stephen is being judged by the content of his character, not by his age.

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Courtesy of Champion Newspaper, Dekalb County, Ga

HU Med Student Leads Free Clinic for Uninsured

Leshell Hatley — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:29:10 +0000

Raolat Abdulai, a third year medical student who began the effort more than a year and will serve as the clinic’s director.

Raolat Abdulia - Photo by Justin D. Knight

Howard University Hospital opened free medical treatment clinic for low-income, uninsured patients on Thursday, June 18, on the first floor of the hospital.

The New Freedmen’s Clinic is run, staffed and funded by medical students from the Howard University College of Medicine and is open from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. every Thursday.

Each Thursday, four medical students, overseen by two Howard University Hospital physicians, will treat patients by appointment and those referred to them by the hospital’s Emergency Department.

The clinic is largely the culmination of the dream of one student, Raolat Abdulai, a third year medical student who began the effort more than a year and will serve as the clinic’s director. Abdulai, 27, from Silver Spring, Md., got the idea for a free clinic in an email from instructor Dr. Christopher DeGannes that told her of a course being offered in Portland, Ore., on how to organize student-run clinics.

She attended the course and found overwhelming support for a free clinic when she returned to Howard.

“When we had a meeting to see who might be interested, more than 100 students showed up, and there were some faculty members as well,” Abdulai said.

She later was selected from more than 3,000 women who applied to a joint project between,O, The Oprah Magazine and The White House Project, a national nonprofit organization working to advance women’s leadership. The initiative, entitled Women Rule!, provided training for a select group of women leaders to bring their dreams to fruition.

Abdulai and 79 other women were selected to attend the three-day leadership-training workshop in New York City run by The White House Project. The women learned to write a business plan, to negotiate, build teams and organize themselves and others.

She and other students later visited and observed the workings of a student-run free clinic at Bread for the City, a non profit agency that provides food, clothing, medical care, legal and social services for low-income Washington residents.

“That’s when I really learned how much effort has to go into a project like this,” Abdulai said. “We needed attending physicians. We needed a space. We needed to learn lab skills and perfect our clinical skills in order to serve the patients. And I really learned it’s a hectic pace at these kinds of clinics.”

Undeterred by those obstacles, she and fellow students applied to the Association of American Medical Colleges for funding and received a $30,000 grant.

“After we got the grant, we finally realized that our dream would come true,” she said. “I’m so excited. I’m ecstatic. I can’t wait until opening day.”

Dr. Charles Mouton, chair of Department of Community and Family Medicine at the College of Medicine and advisor to the clinic, said the students’ efforts reflect the medical school’s mission.

“Howard University College of Medicine’s mission is to serve the underserved populations and reduce health care disparities,” Mouton said. “Our students are driven by that mission. That’s why they came here, because they want to serve people.”