Louis W. Sullivan, MD

Dr. Louis Sullivan graduated from Morehouse College in 1954 with a B.S. in biology. He earned an M.D. from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1958 and completed an internship and residency at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Sullivan focused on hematology. He began a career in education, teaching at Harvard Medical School and the New Jersey College of Medicine. In 1966, he served his alma mater as the co-director of Hematology at Boston University Medical Center. The next year, he founded the Boston University Hematology Service at Boston City Hospital. He continued as a faculty member at the Boston University School of Medicine until 1975, when he moved back to Atlanta to work for Morehouse College. There, he taught biology and medicine, founding the Medical Education Program at Morehouse College.

Morehouse School of Medicine became independent from Morehouse College in 1981, with Sullivan as president and dean. He continued as president through 1989, when he took a leave of absence after being appointed to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services. As head of HHS, Sullivan’s responsibility extended to the health and welfare of the country. He battled the tobacco industry and championed victims of AIDS. In 1993, he left his government post and returned to Morehouse School of Medicine as president.

Sullivan hosted the public television show “Frontiers of Medicine.” He is the founding president of the Association of Minority Health Professions Schools and is active in numerous other civic organizations, including the Boy Scouts of America.