Linda A. Clayton, MD, MPH is a Gynecologic Oncologist-Obstetrician Gynecologist. She is a Board Certified Obstetrician/Gynecologist, Gynecologic Oncologist and Public Health Practitioner. Her career has been concentrated in academic medicine, health policy and population health. She is the first African-American woman to be sub-specialty trained in Gynecologic Oncology. She is Adjunct Professor, Dept OB/Gyn, Meharry Medical College Physician Consultant, Reproductive and Women’s Health, Tennessee Department of Health; Instructor Harvard School of Public Health; has served as Medical Director of the Primary Care Clinician Plan and Senior Associate Medical Director of Medicaid/MassHealth of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; a public health practitioner, health policy researcher and Instructor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH); and as an Instructor and consulting physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Previously, she served as Visiting Professor of OB/Gyn/Gyn-Oncology at the University of Dundee Medical Center, Dundee, Scotland, UK; Assistant Professor of OB-Gyn, Director of Gyn-Oncology and Director of the Cancer Control Research Unit at Meharry Medical College; later serving as Director of Women’s Health Services, Assistant Professor of OB-Gyn and Senior Attending Physician at SUNY Downstate Medical School and King’s County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, NY, Medical Director of Roxbury Comprehensive Health Center, Boston, MA., and Medical Director, Reproductive and Women’s Health, Tennessee Department of Health.
Her focus is improving patient care and health outcomes through appropriate health policies, evidence-based practices and high standards –with goals of eliminating disparities in health and health care, based on race, ethnicity, class, gender and other disparity producing factors; and, ultimately achieving health equity for all population groups.
After graduating from North Carolina Central University, Dr. Clayton earned her M.D. degree at Duke University Medical School. She subsequently completed an OB/GYN residency and a Gynecologic Oncology fellowship at Duke. Certification in Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins and an M.P.H. at the Harvard School of Public Health followed.
In addition to her experience as a practicing physician she has a twenty-five year research background in biomedical sciences, Gyn-Oncology, health policy, health services and the conduct of clinical trials in Oncology, Gynecology and HIV. She established the first Oncology Clinical Trials Program at Meharry Medical College during her tenure as Director of the Cancer Control Research Unit.
She has published extensively in Oncology, health policy and public health, in peer-reviewed journals in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom. She is recipient of numerous awards and has also received Honorary Doctorate Degrees in Humanities and Education. Dr. Clayton is co-author, with her husband, Dr. Byrd, of a book titled An American Health Dilemma (both volumes were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize). She is currently working on completion of Volume Three of An American Health Dilemma.
