Dr. David Satcher is named Surgeon General of the United States.

A four-star admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, Dr. Satcher becomes only the second person in history to hold the positions of surgeon general and assistant secretary for health simultaneously.

Satcher had served as president of Nashville’s Meharry Medical College from 1982 to 1993, before leaving to take the director job at the Centers for Disease Control.

After his service as surgeon general, Satcher is named interim president for the medical school at his alma mater, Morehouse College. He will be replaced as president in 2006 by John E. Maupin Jr. — another former president of Meharry Medical College.