By Parvi Anand
This year’s Founder’s Day Chapel featured Dr. Peter Thomas ’84, an epidemiologist and Senior Scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who returned to Lovett to speak about how his time at Lovett affected his career in global public health.
Dr. Thomas has worked at the CDC for over 25 years and has been deployed to more than 20 countries, including Benin, Uganda, Senegal, and South Africa. When I spoke to him over the phone, he shared that his journey into public health began while he was still exploring medicine. “I was looking at medicine and did an internship in public reproductive health with Dr. Robert Hatcher,” he said. “That’s when the lightbulb went off.”
Inspiringly enough, Dr. Thomas’s interest stemmed from his time at Lovett. “So Dr. Robert Hatcher and his wife recruited my three siblings and me to Lovett, so they came over to our house because that’s when Lovett wanted to integrate in 1971-72,” he said. “They also had three kids who were the same ages, and we played together. We had a great time, and they left a great impression.”
He explained that he became interested in public health because it combined many fields. “I realized I was interested in science, medicine, behavior, and social groups,” he said, “but not just individuals, groups of people, and infections.”
Dr. Thomas also spoke about how his work has changed over time. “Over 25 years, my days have not been the same,” he said. “Now I work with about 20 countries, most of them French-speaking.” He helps countries build field training programs based on the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. “We help them implement programs, write scientific papers, and respond to outbreaks,” he said.
Even more impressive, Dr. Thomas speaks French fluently. “I took it at Lovett, Mr. Lesh’s class, and then took it in college and went to Tulane and got out into the field,” he said.
One of the health crises that impacted him the most was malaria. “I was closer to it,” he said. “I could go into clinics and see severely sick kids with malaria who were clinging for life.” He added, “That village experience really reflects the impact nationally. Think globally and act locally.”
Dr. Thomas shared one moment from Benin that stayed with him. “A woman didn’t have the money or her husband’s permission to take her son to the hospital,” he said. “The clinicians convinced her and paid for her transportation.” He explained that the child had severe malaria and needed urgent care.
In Senegal, he worked on a project that addressed the lack of trust some communities had in doctors. “People trusted local healers more than doctors,” he said. “So we built traditional healer huts across the road from clinics so people could go where they were comfortable but still be referred to a clinic.”
When asked about global health problems that are often overlooked, Dr. Thomas said, “Probably clean water and malnutrition.”
For students interested in public health or medicine, Dr. Thomas encouraged them to take their time exploring. “Take time to consider whose health and what kind of health you’re interested in,” he said. “Don’t only learn in clinics or books.” He added, “Go into the field and understand what healthcare looks like on a daily basis.”
Even after decades in the field, Dr. Thomas remains motivated. “I want to have an impact at the community or national level,” he said. “When you look at data and see the morbidity, number of people dying or getting sick has changed, it makes you feel like you’re actually doing something.”
