After spending more than 22 years as chair of the Department of Community and Family Medicine, J. Lloyd Michener, M.D., professor of community and family medicine, will soon step down to focus his attention on national and international projects designed to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities, an extension of his work with The Practical Playbook.
In a recent interview, Michener reflected on his childhood, his medical training, and his time with the department and as chair.
Tell me about your childhood.
Michener: I’m the second child of two Quaker activists, both from Wichita, Kansas. They were quite active in Quakerism and looked at the role of individuals as being change agents within their communities and societies. Dad was fired, long before I was born, by the University of California where he was a teaching assistant, because he refused to sign the loyalty oath. So he lost a job and worked as a gas station attendant. He later got his doctorate in political science and ended up working for Social Security and rapidly rose up through the ranks to become a senior federal official, helped start the Office of Equal Opportunity. He was always in a bit of an awkward position because he continued his acts as a committed member of the community.