H. Jack Geiger

Herman J. Geiger (November 11, 1925 – December 28, 2020), known as H. Jack Geiger, was an American medical doctor and civil rights activist. He was a leader in the field of social medicine, the philosophy that doctors had a responsibility to treat the social as well as medical conditions that adversely affected patients' health, famously (and controversially) writing prescriptions for food for impoverished patients with malnutrition. Geiger came to embody the idea of the responsibility of a physician to do something about what is now known as the social determinants of health, believing that medicine could be an instrument of social change. He served patients' medical needs as well as social and economic necessities, which he believed were in large part responsible for the health problems communities faced. He was one of the doctors to bring the community health center model to the United States, starting a network that serves 28 million low-income patients as of 2020.

The Arthur C. Logan Professor of Community Medicine at the City University of New York School of Medicine, Geiger was a cofounder and president of Physicians for Human Rights as well as a cofounder and president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, each of which won Nobel Peace Prizes.

Early life, family and education Herman J. Geiger, called Jack, was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York, on November 11, 1925. His parents, a doctor (Jacob) and a microbiologist (Virginia Lowenstein), were both Jewish immigrants, from Austria and Germany respectively. He had met the African American actor backstage at a Broadway production of Native Son. Lee agreed to take Geiger in and Geiger stayed for over a year (with the consent of Geiger's parents).

Geiger was discharged in 1947 and enrolled at the University of Chicago to pursue pre-med studies, but where he also encountered significant anti-Black discrimination.

After five years in journalism, Geiger secured an assignment that allowed him to approach medical school deans. This system entailed the concept that medicine could both attend to the physical ills of the people in those communities but also the structural problems that affected health, like poverty for example. During his time in Pholela, there was a significant decrease in many health metrics including infant mortality, malnutrition, and infectious diseases. Geiger participated in and saw the completion of pit latrines, vegetable gardens, and food programs.

Medical career and activism

Geiger next trained in internal medicine at Harvard, working at Boston City Hospital from 1958 to 1964. As of 2020, the networks encompassed more than 1,300 clinics at more than 9000 sites, and served about 28 million low-income patients. In the interim he was also promoted to Arthur C. Logan Professor of Community Medicine. The group applied medical skills to the investigation of human rights abuses and offered medical and humanitarian aid to survivors of such abuses.

He was also a cofounder and president of the Committee for Health in South Africa and a cofounder and national program coordinator of the Medical Committee for Human Rights.

Honors In 1973, Geiger received the first Award for Excellence of the American Public Health Association for "exceptionally meritorious achievement in improving the health of the American people" in 1973. public health's highest honor, for foundational work demonstrating the interrelation of health and human rights throughout his career.

In recognition of Geiger's pathbreaking work on discrimination in health care, the Congressional Black, Hispanic, and Asian American Caucuses founded the H. Jack Geiger Congressional Fellowships on Health Disparities to support young minority scholars.

Geiger received an honorary degree from Case Western in 2000

Personal life In 1951, Geiger married Mary Battle, a health care administrator; they divorced in 1968.

He died on December 28, 2020, at age 95, at his home in Brooklyn, New York City.

Works