CO-HOST · UNRAVELED: AFTER DNA DISCOVERY

Dr. Richard Carmona

MD, MPH, FACS - The 17th Surgeon General of the United States of America 

He left high school without a diploma and earned his GED in the Army. He went on to graduate top of his medical school class, and the Senate unanimously confirmed him as the nation's doctor.

THE ROAD TO MEDICINE

Dr. Carmona was born to a poor Hispanic family in New York City. As a boy he lived through homelessness and hunger and the health disparities that come with them. Those years showed him how tightly culture, health, education and money are bound together, and that understanding has shaped his work ever since.

He dropped out of high school and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967. While serving he earned his General Equivalency Diploma, joined the Army's Special Forces, and became a combat-decorated Vietnam veteran.

After active duty he went to Bronx Community College of the City University of New York through an open enrollment program for veterans and earned his associate degree. From there he went to the University of California, San Francisco, where he completed his Bachelor of Science in 1977 and his medical degree in 1979. He was awarded the gold-headed cane as the top graduate of his class.

THE SURGEON

Along the way he worked as a paramedic, then a registered nurse, then a physician. He trained in general and vascular surgery at UCSF and completed a National Institutes of Health fellowship in trauma, burns, and critical care.

Tucson Medical Center and the University of Arizona jointly recruited him to start and direct Arizona's first regional trauma care system. He went on to chair the State of Arizona Southern Regional Emergency Medical System and became a professor of surgery, public health, and family and community medicine at the University of Arizona. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

PUBLIC HEALTH

Public health became his second career once he saw that most of his patients' illnesses and injuries could have been prevented. He went back to graduate school at night while still working and earned his Master of Public Health from the University of Arizona in 1998. County and state leaders also asked him to take over as CEO of the struggling county hospital and health care system. He wrote the business plan that made it competitive again, and the system was eventually combined with the University of Arizona.

THE BADGE

Dr. Carmona has served with the Pima County Sheriff's Department in Tucson for more than three decades, as deputy sheriff, detective, SWAT team leader and department surgeon. He is one of the most highly decorated police officers in Arizona. His honors include the National Top Cop Award and National SWAT Officer of the Year, and he has published widely on SWAT training, forensics and tactical emergency medicine.

THE OFFICE

Nominated by the president and unanimously confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Carmona was sworn in as the 17th Surgeon General of the United States on August 5, 2002. He served as a Vice Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. In office he focused on prevention, preparedness, health disparities, health literacy and global health, including health diplomacy. He also issued the definitive Surgeon General's Report on the dangers of second-hand smoke. He completed the full four-year statutory term in 2006.

NOW

After his term he became vice chairman of Canyon Ranch, CEO of its Health division and president of the Canyon Ranch Institute. He is a Laureate Professor of Public Health at the University of Arizona. 

WHY HE'S HERE  

He trained my sister Sue to be a flight nurse. When her helicopter went down in 1992, he was the one who went to get her. He had worked under my father. My brother was the principal at his grandchildren's school. He knew three members of my family before I ever met him.

Nearly thirty years later, after a DNA test took my own story apart, he called me and said, "Whatever you're doing with this, I'm in."

I know my sister brought us together.

Judy

UNRAVELED: After DNA Discovery is coming in 2026.