Thomas Parran, Jr.
| Thomas Parran Jr. | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 6th Surgeon General of the United States | |
|
In office April 6, 1936 – April 6, 1948 |
|
| President |
Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman |
| Preceded by | Hugh S. Cumming |
| Succeeded by | Leonard A. Scheele |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
September 28, 1892 St. Leonard, Maryland, USA |
| Died | February 16, 1968 (aged 75) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA |
Thomas Parran Jr. (September 28, 1892 – February 16, 1968) was an American physician and Public Health Service officer. He was appointed the sixth Surgeon General of the United States from 1936 to 1948, overseeing the controversial Tuskegee syphilis experiment and Guatemala syphilis experiment.
Parran was born and raised near St. Leonard, Maryland, on his family's tobacco farm. He was tutored at home by a relative and attended St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland on a scholarship (1911, A.B.; 1915, A.M.). Finances influenced his decision to attend Georgetown University School of Medicine (1915, M.D.) and to follow with an internship at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. A lifelong interest in research was sparked during medical school.
Parran volunteered at a health laboratory operated by the District of Columbia, under Dr. Joseph J. Kinyoun, founder of Public Health Service's Hygienic Laboratory (renamed the National Institute of Health in 1930). Kinyoun recruited Parran to join a field team of young physicians under PHS's Dr. Leslie L. Lumsden, building privies and surveying conditions in the southern United States. In March 1917, Parran reported to Okmulgee, Oklahoma, for the first of many assignments in rural sanitation.
After receiving an Assistant Surgeon's commission in September 1917, Parran continued on assignments in rural health services administration, sanitation, and the control of communicable diseases; between field assignments, Parran tasted life as an administrator in Washington, DC. In October 1923, he joined a group of young medical officers who attended 6 months of coursework at the Hygienic Laboratory, receiving the practical equivalent of a master's degree in public health. Parran's first leadership position was as Chief of PHS's Division of Venereal Diseases (September 1926), a program begun during World War I. Parran worked to sway public sentiment away from moral condemnation of venereal diseases and toward consideration of syphilis as a medical condition and threat to public health.
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