Former city resident Hill named WMA chairman|[05/12/07]

Published 12:00 am Saturday, May 12, 2007

Former Vicksburg resident J. Edward Hill has been named chairman of the World Medical Association. His post comes immediately after his tenure as president of the American Medical Association, a term that will end in June.

Hill, a 1956 graduate of Carr Central High School, has practiced medicine in Mississippi for 43 years. Now a resident of Tupelo, where he runs his family practice, he has served on the Board of Trustees for AMA since 2002 and was elected president in 2005.

While on the national medical board, Hill was instrumental in encouraging 19 U.S. states to adopt smoke-free legislation and the passage of national Patient Safety legislation.

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&#8220I look forward to applying the work we’ve done at home to improve health care on a global level,” he said.

Through its membership in the WMA, the AMA was also an active participant in a letter-writing campaign that secured the release of several wrongly imprisoned physicians. AMA delegation to the WMA played a major role in drafting policy on health-care issues, such as biological weapons, medical education, obesity, medical liability reform, avian and pandemic influenza and reducing the global impact of alcohol on health.

Hill, who received his medical degree from the University of Mississippi, developed and directed a local maternity health program that resulted in lowering the fetal mortality rate from one of the highest in the United States to below the national average.

He has served as chairman and president of the Mississippi State Medical Association, president of the Mississippi Academy of Family Physicians, delegate to the American Academy of Family Physicians and president of the Southern Medical Association.

Born in Omaha, Neb., Hill moved with his parents to Vicksburg at the age of 4 in 1941. His father was an engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the family first lived on East Avenue and later on Patton Street.

After medical school, Hill joined the Navy for four years, where he completed his internship and began practicing medicine. He returned to the Mississippi Delta, where he started a private practice in Hollandale. There, in one of the nation’s poorest regions, he saw a need for medical reforms.

He was the first physician from Mississippi to sit on the AMA board as president. He will replace Dr. Yoram Blachar, president of the Israel Medical Association, who has held the position for the past four years.

Hill has received such awards as &#8220Mississippi Family Doctor of the Year” in 1991 and runner-up for Good Housekeeping magazine’s &#8220Family Doctor of the Year” in 1977.