Eugene A. Stead

Eugene Anson Stead Jr. (October 6, 1908, in Atlanta, Georgia – June 12, 2005) is best known as a physician, medical educator, and researcher.

Emory University As an undergraduate at Emory University, he earned his tuition by working in the biology department as a student assistant. Following his obtainment of an MD Degree, he interned in internal medicine and surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and also at Cincinnati General Hospital and Boston City Hospital. By age 33, he had become a professor of medicine at Emory. Following this he became a professor of medicine and Chairmen of the Department of Medicine at Duke University for 20 years. Many of his students and mentees went on to become notable researchers and educators. Additionally, because there were corpsmen during World War II and the Vietnam War who were taught how to do emergency medicine in terms of paramedical skills, the creation of the physician assistant program provided them a medium to continue their application of the training and skills they had learned.

In 1967, he graduated the first class of physician assistant students from Duke University's PA program. The Association of American Medical Colleges' Abraham Flexner Award for Distinguished Service to Medical Education National PA day is celebrated in many places on October 6 to commemorate the day the first class of PAs graduated from Duke University in 1967. It happens to coincide with Dr. Stead's birthday.

Nationally, there is a healthcare worker shortage. The healthcare profession that is suffering the most from this shortage, however, are physicians.

Eugene Stead's research in the 1940s paved the way for cardiac catheterization in medicine, which is now used to treat heart failure.

Medical positions Chair Dept. of Medicine, Emory University (1942-46) Dean of the School of Medicine, Emory University (1945-46) Chair Dept. Of Medicine, Duke University (1947-1967)