A Doctor for Everyone: The Passing of Dr. Quentin Young

Our leader, our inspirator, Dr. Quentin Young died this past March.

Dr. Young campaigned tirelessly for a single-payer health insurance - a Medicare for All Plan. As he often said, a single-payer system would eliminate the need for private insurance companies, which "are in the business of finding reasons not to care." Thus a campaign slogan of "People over Profit."

Dr. Young's life reads like a social activist itinerary through the historical events of the 20th century. His causes might have been unpopular at one time but he was proud that they became issues accepted by the many.

In the 1960s he worked to desegregate Chicago hospitals. He was a founder of the Medical Committee for Human Rights. This committee went to the South to provide care for the civil-rights workers. It treated members of the Black Panther Party and protesters during the 1968 Chicago Democratic national convention. He was fired as chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Cook County Hospital because he supported the doctors' efforts for bargaining rights and improved patient care.

"In time, however, Dr. Young's activism came to be appreciated. In 1983, he was appointed by Chicago Mayor Harold Washington as President of Chicago's Board of Health. He had the distinction, no doubt due to his social-justice work, of being the personal physician to Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, and Studs Terkel. "When the now-famous incident occurred that Dr. King was hit by a rock while demonstrating segregated housing in Chicago, it was Dr. Young who treated him."

We at Health Care For All PA know him as National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program and President of theAmerican Public Health Association. It was at a national public health meeting that I had the privilege of meeting him. He taught us that along with providing health-care, we could not overlook the importance of working on the social ills that accompany poor health.

Theresa Chalich, R.N. is the Southwest Coordinator of the Health Care For All Chapter.

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