Stephen Smith

Stephen Smith was a New York City surgeon and civic leader who made important contributions to medical education, nursing education, public health, housing improvement, mental health reform, charity oversight, and urban environmentalism. Smith maintained an active medical practice, was an attending physician at Bellevue Hospital for thirty-seven years, and authored three surgical texts, but he was best known for his public service. Three mayors, seven governors, and two U.S. presidents appointed Smith to almost fifty years of public responsibilities. Shortly before Smith’s death in 1922, Columbia University President and future Nobel Peace Prize winner Nicholas Murray Butler awarded him the school’s highest honor and pronounced Smith, “the most interesting figure in American medicine and in American public service today.” The New York Academy of Medicine initiated the annual Stephen Smith Medal for lifetime achievement in public health in 2005.