WS Chronicle

Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and former president of Morehouse School of Medicine, will be the keynote speaker at a Thursday, April 18 research conference hosted by the School of Health Sciences at Winston-Salem State University.

“Moving from Health Disparities to Health Equity: The Search for Solutions” will be held in the Dillard Auditorium in the Anderson Conference Center on the WSSU campus from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.  In addition to Sullivan’s address, there will be expert panel discussions, poster and oral presentations, and break-out sessions that highlight proven models and promising strategies for achieving health equity.  The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is requested.  Participants may register at www.wssu.edu/shs.

Sullivan was appointed secretary of Health and Human Services by President George H.W. Bush and served in that capacity from 1989 until 1993.  He also served as chair of the President’s Commission on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and was co-chair of the President’s Commission on HIV and AIDS under President George W. Bush.

Currently, Sullivan is chairman of the board of the National Health Museum in Atlanta, an organization that works to improve health by enhancing health literacy and advancing healthy behaviors.  He also is chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Sullivan Alliance to Transform America’s Health Professionals.

A native of Atlanta, Sullivan graduated manga cum laude from Morehouse College and earned his medical degree, sum laude, from Boston University School of Medicine.  He was an instructor of medicine at Harvard medical School and spent nine years at Boston University, where he founded the Boston University Hematology Service at Boston City Hospital.  In 1975, he left Boston University to become the founding dean and director of the Medical Education Program at Morehouse College and became dean and president of Morehouse School of Medicine in 1981 and remained in that position for more than two decades.  He retired in 2002 and was appointed president emeritus.