Joycelyn Elders, MD, was the first African American Surgeon General of the United States. Elders was born in Arkansas in 1933 to sharecropper parents. She attended Philander Smith College on a scholarship and graduated in three years. She then spent three years in the US army, and in 1956, enrolled in the University of Arkansas Medical School on the GI Bill. She became the only woman to graduate from the school, earning her medical degree. In 1987, she was appointed to the office of Director of Public Health in Arkansas. During her tenure, she nearly doubled childhood immunizations, expanded the state’s prenatal care program, and increased home-care options for the chronically or terminally ill. In 1993 Elders was nominated by President Clinton for the post of US Surgeon General. She served for 15 months, and in 1995 returned to the University of Arkansas as a faculty researcher and professor of pediatric endocrinology. She is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine.
