H. Jack Geiger

Who is H. Jack Geiger?

H. Jack Geiger, MD, MSciHyg, is a founding member and past president of Physicians for Human Rights, a founding member and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a founding member and past president of the Committee for Health in South Africa, and a founding member and national program coordinator of the Medical Committee for Human Rights.

Geiger has led or participated in human rights missions for PHR, the United Nations, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science to former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Kurdistan, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and South Africa. Most of his professional career has been focused on the related issues of health, poverty, and civil rights. Geiger initiated the community health center model in the United States, founding and directing the nation's first two community health centers, in the Mississippi Delta and in Columbia Point, Boston. These centers became models for what is now a national network of more than 1100 CHCs serving some 20 million low-income and minority patients.

Geiger is a member of the Institute of Medicine, United States National Academy of Sciences, and the recipient of the IOM's highest honor, the Lienhardt Award for "outstanding contributions to minority health." In recognition of his work on racial and ethnic discrimination in health care, the Congressional Black, Hispanic and Asian American Caucuses have created the H. Jack Geiger Congressional Fellowships on Health Disparities for young minority scholars.