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DIVERSITY Set an Example for Others, U.S. Surgeon General Advises No matter where you start in life, you can attain a top position, U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona told students from four area secondary schools and others at the March 31 leadership forum hosted by the HMS Office for Diversity and Community Partnership. Communities hold the key to preventing major health problems, and individuals hold the keys to their future, U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona (above) told an HMS audience. (Photo by Amy Avitabile) "I've been hungry," Carmona said. "I've been homeless. My parents had substance abuse problems. The fact that someone like me has been given this opportunity means there is no reason you can't do the same thing. Stay focused. Set an example for a thousand other kids like you." The oldest of four and the first in his family to go to college, Carmona grew up in a poor Latino family in Harlem with aspirations of becoming a professional ballplayer. He was a truant by seventh grade and was asked to leave school at age 17. After a returning soldier told him about the educational opportunities in the army, Carmona enlisted and spent a year in Vietnam as a medic. That year, his two best friends died back in New York; both deaths involved drugs. After the army, Carmona angered his family by turning down a place in the electricians' union secured by his uncle in favor of pursuing his new dream of going to college and becoming a doctor. He went on to graduate at the top of his class at the University of California, San Francisco. He later earned a master's degree in public health at the University of Arizona. A trauma surgeon and CEO for a county health program in Arizona, Carmona is not sure how he was selected the country's top health officer. But now that he is, he does avoid eating fries in public to help set an example for the health measures he advocates. The forum was cosponsored by the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy and the California Endowment Scholars in Health Policy program at Harvard University. --Carol Cruzan Morton