Community Health Centers and Primary Care Teaching: A Look at the Future

H. Jack Geiger, M.D., M.Sci. Hyg. (Epidemiology), Sc.D. (hon.) is the Arthur C. Logan Professor Emeritus of Community Medicine at Sophie Davis; a founding member and Past President of Physicians for Human Rights, which shared in the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1998; a founding member and Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the U.S. affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1985; and a founding member and Past President of the Committee for Health in Southern Africa. He received his M.D. degree from Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1958 and trained in internal medicine on the Harvard Service of Boston City Hospital from 1958-64. During this period he also earned a degree in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health, and was a Research Fellow, Research Training Program in Social Science and Medicine, Harvard University. Most of his professional career has been devoted to the problems of health, poverty and human rights. He initiated the community health center model in the U.S., combining community-oriented primary care, public health interventions, and civil rights and community empowerment and development initiatives, and was a leader in the development of the national health center network of more than 900 urban, rural and migrant centers currently serving some twelve million low-income patients. Dr. Geiger's work in human rights spans more than six decades. He was a founding member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1943 and was Civil Liberties Chairman of the American Veterans Committee from 1947-51, leading campaigns to end racial discrimination in hospital care and admission to medical schools.