Dr. Richard Allen Williams, the newly installed 117th President of the National Medical Association, is currently Clinical Professor of Medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine and President/CEO of the Minority Health Institute, Inc. in Los Angeles, California. He was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. Upon graduating from Howard High School at the top of his class, he was awarded a full scholarship to Harvard University and graduated with honors as the first African American student at Harvard from Delaware. He received the M.D. degree from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, performed his internship at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, Internal Medicine residency at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, and Cardiology fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Dr. Williams has numerous publications and awards to his credit and is the author of The Textbook of Black-related Diseases published in 1975, which detailed medical conditions peculiar to African Americans; no other book of its kind has been written before or since, and it is widely considered the classic seminal work on the medical status of blacks. Dr. Williams founded the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC) in 1974 and served as its president for 10 years. Recently, he served as President of the Charles R. Drew Medical Society in Los Angeles, and is an internationally-recognized authority on hypertension and sudden cardiac death, and his new book contains a foreward written by the President of the AHA. Dr. Williams was recently selected as one of the 15 African American “Pioneers in Cardiology” (along with Dr. Charles R. Drew, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and others. Currently, Dr. Williams is promoting his new concept called “Humane Medicine” which is designed to restructure the way in which medicine is taught and practiced in the United States. This concept is a forerunner of cultural competence. He was chosen by the National Medical Association (NMA) to receive the prestigious Dr. John Beauregard Johnson Award and was honored with a testimonial dinner by the Association of Black Cardiologists in August, 2000 in recognition of his lifetime accomplishments and was also presented with the Scroll of Merit, the highest award given by the NMA. He received the National Leadership Award from the Consortium on Southeastern Hypertension Control (COSEHC) and was named as one of the 100 best doctors in America by Black Enterprise Magazine. He was presented with Harvard’s Lifetime Achievement Award and was given the International Achievement Award by the LINKS, Inc., and selected to matriculate at the Oxford Round Table, University of Oxford, England.
Dr. Doris Browne, was elected President-Elect of the National Medical Association (NMA) at its 114th Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly in Los Angeles, California and will take the helm as the 118th President of the NMA on August 1, 2017 in Philadelphia, PA at its Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly.
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To advance the art and science of medicine for people of African descent through education, advocacy, and health policy to promote health and wellness, eliminate health disparities, and sustain physician viability.
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