Illinois Medicine

I L L I N O I S M E D I C I N E | 37 S THE FIRST NATIONAL DIRECTOR of Project Head Start in the mid-1960s, the late Julius Richmond '37, MD '40, successfully implemented the program that to date has provided education and health care for more than 32 million low-income preschool children in the United States. In addition, Richmond pulled together resources to sponsor a cluster of Neighborhood Health Centers that has evolved into the national network of 1,375 Federally Qualified Health Centers, which provide safety-net health care in underserved communities, according to a tally compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation. While serving as the Surgeon General of the United States from 1977 to 1981, Richmond pioneered the use of quantitative goal-setting and measurement for public health and campaigned fervently against smoking, detailing both efforts in landmark reports. It is no wonder that Benjamin Van Voorhees, MD, MPH, professor and head of department of pediatrics at the COM, hails Richmond as "the iconic exemplar of the tradition of the University of the Illinois College of Medicine." In recognition of this legacy of major, enduring contributions to the nation's health, the College of Medicine chose Richmond as the posthumous recipient of the 2016 Pioneer in Medicine Award. The recipient is chosen for work that goes beyond conventional boundaries to transform patient care, biomedical science or education. "He exemplifies so many of the virtues that we wish for our physicians, in the sense of looking at contemporary society, understanding the challenges posed to people in terms of human disease, health and development and well-being, and bringing our full sense of humanity, imagination and creativity to the task of transforming these problems and building solutions for them," Van Voorhees says. A Chicago native, Richmond followed his undergraduate degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and MD from the College of Medicine with an internship and pediatric residency at Cook County Hospital. World War II interrupted this training, as Richmond volunteered for service and became a flight surgeon with the U.S. Air Force's Flying Training Command, serving until 1946. He then completed his residency and joined the College of Medicine's pediatric faculty. He later became a Markle Foundation scholar in medical science (1948–53) and worked with nonprofit children's welfare organizations and the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. Richmond left the COM in 1953 to become chairman and professor of the department of pediatrics at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Medicine. He became the SUNY college's dean in 1965, the same year that President Lyndon Johnson and Sargent Shriver of the Kennedy Foundation appointed him director of Head Start. Richmond had come to Shriver's attention because of research he and a colleague had conducted at SUNY on the adverse effects of poverty on the psychosocial development of young children, which found a decline in cognitive function and responsiveness to adult direction. To pursue their studies further, they wound up establishing the first infant day care center in the country. Raymond Curry, MD, FACP, Illinois Medicine's senior associate dean of education, refers to Richmond's major initiatives as Head Start's director, and his establishment of a model for FQHCs, as "two great moments of inventiveness … together [they] form a tandem which offer the prospect of substantially improving the health, well-being and development outcomes of lower-income children in the United States. … For a pediatrician to be so engaged and involved with the issues of social determinants of health at the time was pioneering." "Pediatricians all over the world are grateful for Dr. Richmond's leadership, advocacy and lasting impact on improving the lives of children," adds Karen Remley, MD, MBA, MPH, CEO and executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "We here at the academy recognize the brilliance of his thoughtful, persistent and tireless leadership in so many public health issues, and I personally admire him greatly — a true pediatrician leader and hero for children." Richmond directed Head Start until 1967 before returning to SUNY. In 1971, he became a professor of child psychiatry and human development at Harvard Medical School and a professor in Harvard's School of Public Health. While holding dual roles as Surgeon General and assistant secretary for health — an appointment he demanded so that he could make policy as well as advocate for it — Richmond became the first official to establish health goals for the country overall. He detailed them in the landmark 1979 report, "Healthy People: The Surgeon General's Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention." One of the initiative's main goals was to encourage people to take a more active role in their own health through their lifestyle choices. He also emphasized the dangers of smoking tobacco, which were detailed in another 1979 report from the Surgeon General, "Smoking and Health." Richmond continued his fight against smoking into his 80s, when he testified in two lawsuits seeking damages against tobacco companies from people harmed by cigarette smoke. Richmond left his government posts in 1981 and returned to Harvard, where he was professor of health policy and later also the John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and director of the Division of Health Policy Research and Education. In addition, he chaired the steering committee of the National Academy of Sciences' Forum on the Future of Children and Families. His work previously was honored with awards from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Pediatric Society and the American Public Health Association. Richmond passed away in 2008 at the age of 91. A Julius Richmond (left) with Lady Bird Johnson, at the beginning of Head Start Julius Richmond with former President Jimmy Carter Richmond teamed up with such groups as the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute to present scientific evidence of the dangers of tobacco.

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