Dr. Robert Smith

The UMMC-GTEC program centers on a graduate-level certificate program focused on population cardiovascular epidemiology research by establishing the Robert Smith, MD Graduate Scholars Program, honoring Dr. Robert Smith. Doctoral students accepted into the program will be referred to as Smith Scholars.

Dr. Smith is a native of Terry, Mississippi, who is nationally respected for his leadership as the founder of the Medical Committee for Human Rights. As part of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, this organization successfully pressured health care institutions across the South to expand access to health services for and end unequal treatment of African Americans. Dr. Smith’s work has been chronicled in the book by historian John Dittmer, Ph.D., The Good Doctors and others. one of the heroes of health care in Mississippi, Dr. Robert Smith.

Dr. Smith earned his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Tougaloo College and his MD from Howard University School of Medicine. He completed clinical training at Cook County Hospital and returned to Mississippi as a general practitioner. Dr. Smith is a Charter Diplomat of the American Board of Family Physicians and a Charter Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Mississippi Family Health Center, Ltd. since its founding in 1963 and remains a practicing physician today.