Dartmouth To Convene Seven Surgeons General To Discuss Mental Health

Dartmouth College is convening all seven living U. S. Surgeons General for a high-level discussion of the nation’s mental health crisis this fall.

The event – The Current and Former U.S. Surgeons General Discuss the Future of Mental Health and Wellness – will be hosted by Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock on September 28. It will be free and open to the public, and the university is also planning to livestream the discussion so it will be available to audiences outside Dartmouth.

“Nationwide, mental health is an urgent challenge that health care professionals, educators, and leaders at every level must address head on,” said Beilock in the college’s announcement.

Beilock, a cognitive scientist specializing in the psychological factors that affect human performance. has made improving the mental health and wellness of the community a priority for her administration. “As institutional leaders, researchers, doctors, and thinkers, we in higher education have an imperative to go beyond bestowing knowledge—we have a responsibility to identify and address root causes of the crisis while also providing young people with the tools they need to feel healthy and connected,” she added.

The convening of all the Surgeons General will occur within a week after Beilock is inaugurated as Dartmouth’s new president on September 22. Invited to participate in the event are:

• Vivek Murthy, the first U.S.Surgeon General of Indian descent, who was initially appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014 and was reappointed in 2021 by President Joe Biden. Murthy issued an advisory on youth mental health in 2021.
• Jerome Adams, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017. He’s now a presidential fellow at Purdue University, where he serves as executive director of Health Equity Initiatives and a distinguished professor of the practice.
• Regina Benjamin, appointed by President Obama in 2009. She’s the founder and CEO of BayouClinic, a rural family practice in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.
• Richard Carmona, a surgeon who’s also worked as a paramedic and registered nurse, was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006. He’s a distinguished professor of public health, professor of surgery, and clinical professor of pharmacy practice-science at the University of Arizona.
• David Satcher, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1998. He’s founding director and senior adviser of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine, where he also holds a faculty appointment in community health and preventative medicine.
• Joycelyn Elders, a pediatrician and public health administrator, was appointed by President Clinton in 1993. She’s a professor emerita of the University of Arkansas School of Medicine.
• Antonia Novello, a pediatric nephrologist who was appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1990 and was the first woman and the first Hispanic to serve as surgeon general. After that, she was the commissioner of health for the state of New York and vice president of Women and Children Health and Policy Affairs at Disney Children’s Hospital at Florida Hospital.

Hosting such an event at Dartmouth College is particularly fitting. The college is home to the C. Everett Koop Institute, named for the late Surgeon General who was a 1937 graduate of the college and returned in 1992 as the Elizabeth DeCamp McInery Professor of Surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine. Koop, the nation’s 13th Surgeon General, gained fame, in part, for his 1982 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health, which was considered at the time to be a particularly bold statement about the connections between smoking and cancer.

Mental health problems remain a major concern on campuses across the country. According to the 2022-23 the Healthy Minds Study, which surveyed more than 76,000 college students nationwide, 41% reported symptoms of depression, 36% suffered anxiety, and 14% reported having suicidal thoughts during the past year. In addition 36% indicated they had sought mental health counseling/therapy in that time period.

“Dartmouth, sadly, has not been immune to the worst consequences of the mental health crisis. Our community has suffered devastating loss to suicide, and that is why we need to be having these hard conversations,” Beilock said in the university announcement.

According to Lisa McBride, associate dean for diversity, equity at the Geisel School of Medicine, and the originator of the idea for the convening, the Sept. 28 event will be only the second time in history that all living Surgeons General have come together for a common purpose. The first, according to McBride, occurred in 1998, when Johns Hopkins University’s School of Public Health hosted past and present Surgeons General on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.