Mullan, Fitzhugh 1942-

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MULLAN, Fitzhugh 1942-

PERSONAL: Born July 22, 1942, in Tampa, FL; son of Hugh (a physician) and Mariquita (MacManus) Mullan; married Judith Wentworth (a social worker), June 9, 1968; children: Meghan Elizabeth, Jason Michael, Caitlin Patricia. Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1964; University of Chicago, M.D., 1968.

ADDRESSES: Office—Health Affairs, 7500 Old Georgetown Rd., Ste. 600, Bethesda, MD 20814-6133.

CAREER: Jacobi Hospital, Bronx, NY, intern and resident, 1968-70; Lincoln Hospital, Bronx, resident and attending physician, 1970-72; National Health Services Corp., Santa Fe, NM, physician, 1972-75, director, 1977-81; Institute of Medicine, Washington, DC, scholar-in-residence, 1981-82; National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, senior medical officer, 1982-84; State of New Mexico, Santa Fe, secretary for health and environment, 1984-85; Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, MD, associate professor, 1986-88; Office of Surgeon General, Rockville, MD, director of public health history project, 1988-90, director of bureau of health professions, 1990-95, Assistant Surgeon General, 1990-95; Health Affairs, Bethesda, MD, contributing editor, 1996—; George Washington University, Washington, DC, professor of pediatrics and public health, 1996-2005, Murdock Head Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, 2005—; Upper Cardozo Community Health Center, staff physician, 1996—.

MEMBER: American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics (fellow), American Public Health Association, American Association for the History of Medicine, Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science.

AWARDS, HONORS: D.Sc., University of Osteopathic Medicine, 1993; L.H.D., College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, 1993.

WRITINGS:

White Coat, Clenched Fist: The Political Education of an American Physician, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1976.

Vital Signs: A Young Doctor's Struggle with Cancer, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1982.

(Editor, with Eileen Connor) Community Oriented Primary Care: New Directions for Health Services Delivery: Conference Proceedings, National Academy Press (Washington, DC), 1983.

Plagues and Politics: The Story of the United States Public Health Service, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1989.

(Editor, with Barbara Hoffman and the editors of Consumer Reports Books) An Almanac of Practical Resources for Cancer Survivors: Charting the Journey, Consumers Union (Mount Vernon, NY), 1990.

Big Doctoring in America: Profiles in Primary Care, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2002.

(Editor, with Claire Panosian and Patricia Cuff) Healers Abroad: Americans Responding to the Human Resource Crisis in HIV/AIDS, National Academies Press (Washington, DC), 2005.

Author of "Mullings," a column in Hospital Physician. Contributing editor, Hospital Physician. Book reviewer for Washington Post. Contributor to journals, including New England Journal of Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, and Journal of the American Medical Association.

SIDELIGHTS: Fitzhugh Mullan is a medical doctor who has written several books about the history of medicine in America. His book Plagues and Politics: The Story of the United States Public Health Service is a history of the government agency charged with preventing the spread of disease and epidemics. Begun during the Revolutionary War to provide medical care to merchant mariners, the agency has developed methods over the years to insure quarantines, to screen new immigrants for disease, and to wage vaccination campaigns. Myron H. Wegman, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, called Plagues and Politics "a valuable and informative book that makes attractive reading as well as a useful reference."

In Big Doctoring in America: Profiles in Primary Care, Mullan presents the oral histories of fifteen physicians and nurses involved in primary care services. He argues that general practitioners, long overlooked in favor of medical specialists, should be the focus of renewed attention by the medical establishment. Such a change would decrease healthcare costs and provide more Americans with the kind of medical coverage they actually need. Margaret K. Norden found in Library Journal that Mullan "underscores an important issue in American healthcare and makes a compelling statement." In Booklist, William Beatty described Big Doctoring in America as a "broadly based, stimulating book."

Mullan once told CA: "My work as a doctor and as a writer has the common intent of democratizing and equalizing the health care provided in America. I am concerned about both the inequality in the distribution of medical services in this country and their increasingly technological and (often) dehumanizing direction. I would like to see national health insurance established and, after that, a national health service. I feel that, ultimately, the government is the only vehicle large enough and representative enough to arbitrate health care. At the same time I feel we must examine and re-examine the machinery and procedures we call medicine lest the entire undertaking become one glossy, costly, and injurious heart transplant or Swine Flu program."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, November 15, 1982, review of Vital Signs: A Young Doctor's Struggle with Cancer, p. 418; September 15, 1989, review of Plagues and Politics: The Story of the United States Public Health Service, p. 124; September 15, 2002, William Beatty, review of Big Doctoring in America: Profiles in Primary Care, p. 185.

Bookwatch, December, 1989, review of Plagues and Politics, p. 3.

Book World, November 5, 1989, review of Plagues and Politics, p. 17.

Choice, May, 1990, review of Plagues and Politics, p. 1533.

Isis, June, 1991, review of Plagues and Politics, p. 412.

Journal of the American Medical Association, June 27, 1990, Myron H. Wegman, review of Plagues and Politics, p. 3340; May 21, 2003, Jason Chao, review of Big Doctoring in America, p. 2580.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 1982, review of Vital Signs, p. 1281; December 15, 1982, review of Vital Signs, p. 1341.

Library Journal, January 15, 1983, review of Vital Signs, p. 126; September 15, 2002, Margaret K. Norden, review of Big Doctoring in America, p. 84.

Medical Economics, October 8, 2004, "What Primary Care Needs Now," interview with Mullan, p. 36.

New England Journal of Medicine, February 13, 2003, Faith T. Fitzgerald, review of Big Doctoring in America, p. 671.

Newsweek, March 21, 1983, review of Vital Signs, p. 75.

New York Times Book Review, February 27, 1983, review of Vital Signs, p. 3.

Publishers Weekly, December 17, 1982, review of Vital Signs, p. 69.

Quarterly Review of Biology, September, 1990, review of Plagues and Politics, p. 388.

Reference and Research Book News, June, 1990, review of Plagues and Politics, p. 37.

SciTech Book News, June, 1990, review of Plagues and Politics, p. 14; March, 1991, review of An Almanac of Practical Resources for Cancer Survivors, p. 15.

Virginia Quarterly Review, summer, 1983, review of Vital Signs, p. 80.

Washington Post, November 19, 2003, Gregory Mott, review of Big Doctoring in America, p. H3.