TENNESSEE HEALTH CARE HALL OF FAME NOMINEE CLIFTON MEADOR

From humble beginnings in rural Alabama, Dr. Clifton K. Meador (1931-2021) earned his B.A. (1952) and his Doctor of Medicine (1955) from Vanderbilt University. He also completed his residency at Vanderbilt. After a few years practicing medicine, teaching at the College of Medicine at University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) and directing the National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Center, he became Dean of the School of Medicine of UAB. There, he created the Medical Information Service by Telephone, by which any physician in Alabama could call specialists in the medical center for a free consultation. MIST soon served 100,000 calls annually; many Alabama health care statistics improved immediately, including a plummet in infant mortality. Additionally, as direct result of his leadership, UAB ended racial segregation—one of his accomplishments that he was most proud of.

In 1973, Meador returned to Nashville, joining the Vanderbilt faculty to create the medical residency program at Saint Thomas Hospital. He served as Chief of Medicine at Saint Thomas and Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt until 1982, then as Chief Medical Officer of Saint Thomas until 1998. He had the rare talent and skill to be a respected colleague of his physician peers and a values-based leader of the medical staff who could encourage, support and make the difficult decisions regarding discipline and professional behavior.

Seeing the dysfunctional fragmentation of the health care delivery system, Meador proposed methods for caring for the uninsured and navigated grants for pilot projects. In 1999, he came out of a brief retirement to become the first Executive Director of the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance, where he served until 2012. At the Alliance, he was one of the founders and first chairman of the Consortium of Safety Net Providers of Middle Tennessee: 23 clinics that served uninsured people. Meador was one of very few physicians who could bring together the two academic medical centers in Middle Tennessee to advocate for and accomplish those changes. His leadership is honored through the Clifton K. Meador Community Health Leadership Award, for individuals who improve care access to the underserved populations of Middle Tennessee.

His legacy as a role model is clear: As a deeply admired attending physician, he taught young physicians to respect the dignity and uniqueness of each patient. He constantly reminded mentees that humans are complex beings with physical, mental and spiritual dimensions. An expert diagnostician who served as a resource to colleagues for difficult cases, he taught that the patient was a partner in the healing process and helped diagnose many cases incorrectly labeled as psychosomatic. He also served as a role model to the administrators: he understood the importance of budgets and responsible fiscal policies but reminded administrators that not every patient had insurance or monetary resources, was capable of self-care or was able to navigate the complexities of the health care delivery system independently.

Meador served on several professional and nonprofit boards, including HIPTN for the State of Tennessee, the Middle Tennessee eHealth Connect board, and the Board of Consortium of Safety Net Providers of Middle Tennessee. He published 14 books and more than 50 papers in the medical literature, and he was known for his satires of the excesses of American medicine.