LASALLE D. LEFFALL, JR. An Alpha Man caps a brilliant career as a physician and surgeon with a successful stint as head of the world's largest volunteer health agency. As President of the American Cancer Society, Lasalle Leffall stressed increased emphasis on the health problems of minorities and involved minority organizations in the fight against cancer. Brother LASALLE D. LEFFALL, JR., M.D. became national president of the American Cancer Society on November 1 1 , 1 9 7 8 , but he had set his sights on helping people through a career in medicine long ago, when he was still a Quincy, Florida high school student. His father, the only one of 11 in his family to go to college, was principal of a school in Quincy, during his son's growing-up years. His mother still teaches there. They wanted their son to have a college education, and his father gave him some career advice. "Your mother and I are teachers; we enjoy teaching," he explained. "But if you became a physician you could help people in a way we can't." LaSalle Jr. heeded his father's counsel, and his dream was also supported by the town's only Black doctor. His B.S. degree from Florida A. & M. University, Tallahassee (where he was initiated into Beta Nu chapter), was followed by an M.D. from Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1952. After interning in St. Louis, he returned to Washington for residencies in surgery at Freedman's Hospital and D.C. General Hospital. Dr. Leffall was senior resident in surgery at Freedman's in 1957, when a fellow Floridian, Dr. Jack White, the first Black to receive a fellowship at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York returned. "He told us," Brother Leffall said, "what he had learned there and how exciting the cancer field was." "I became the third Black to be admitted and entered Memorial's senior fellowship program for two and onehalf years. Working with the giants in the field of cancer was one of the greatest thrills of my life." Since that time, Brother Leffall has become a medical giant himself. Currently, he is professor and chairman of the department of surgery, Howard 22
Brother LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr., M.D., President of the American Cancer Society, being interviewed by NBC-TV's Andrea Mitchell. University College of Medicine and professorial lecturer in surgery at Georgetown University. He went to Howard in 1962 as assistant professor of surgery, and now Dr. Burke Syphax, Howard's former chief of surgery, claims that Dr. Leffall's reputation for excellence put Howard's medical school "on the national map." In addition to the demanding responsibilities of a surgical oncologist, Dr. Leffall engages in an awesome number and variety of other activities in his field. He has been visiting professor of surgery at 45 institutions in the past seven years; has written over sixty articles for medical journals; served as president of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the American College of Surgeons; is now president of the Society of Surgical Oncology, and has been chairman of many medical committees and task forces over the years. His involvement with the American Cancer Society began in 1963 when he first became a director at large with
the Society's D.C. Division, and served as Division president, 1974-76. Recognized by the Society's National organization in the mid-1960's, Dr. Leffall has served as chairman of its National Colon and Rectal Task Force; Chairman of the Medical and Scientific Committee and the Medical and Scientific Executive Committee; and president-elect. Now, at age 48, married and the father of a teen-age son, he is the medical leader of the largest voluntary health agency in the world. During his term, Dr. Leffall continued existing ACS programs and increased emphasis on reaching minority groups with cancer information and involving those groups more actively in the Society. "When I speak of minorities," he says, "it happens that the largest group in many areas is Black. But, in some communities, the largest group may be Puerto Rican, Mexican, Cuban, Hawaiian, Indian or Asiatic — Chinese, continued on page 33
The Sphinx / Fall 1979