THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF DR. JOSEPH WRIGHT

His work has been recognized with the highest honors from many prestigious organizations, such as The Academic Pediatrics Association, the Academy of Violence and Abuse, the Council on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the George Washington University, and the University of Maryland School of Public Health.

Like Dr. Koop, Dr. Wright was raised in Brooklyn, New York. As the eldest son of two New York City civil servants, and as part of a large family of public serving professionals, he was infused with commitment to community early on.

Upon completion of his pediatric residency training at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., Dr. Wright served in the Public Health Service during Dr. Koop’s 2nd term as the U.S. Surgeon General. Practicing back in his old Brooklyn neighborhood, he considers this community-based experience as a primary care pediatric and adolescent health provider to be the defining touchstone that has since guided his distinguished 35-year career.

Following the Public Health Service, Dr. Wright, now in partnership with his wife, Frances, a certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, and their two young sons, Justin and Christopher, returned to Washington, D.C., and Children’s National for subspecialty fellowship training in Emergency Medicine as part of the inaugural cohort of board-certified Pediatric Emergency Medicine physicians in the United States.

It was during this period of intense training at one of the nation’s busiest pediatric emergency departments and trauma centers, and the subsequent 22 years as faculty at Children’s National, that Dr. Wright honed his collaboration and leadership skills with a particular focus on injury prevention.

As a first-year fellow, Dr. Wright worked closely with Dr. Koop’s Surgeon General successor, Dr. Antonia Novello, around her commitment to stem youth binge drinking and dangerous, often deadly, alcohol poisoning. As a result, Dr. Wright was recognized nationally for his advocacy efforts that led to the Federal Trade Commission’s crack down on the exploitive marketing of high potency, fortified wine products to underserved communities.

While at Children’s National, he was also appointed as the inaugural State EMS Medical Director for Pediatrics within the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems. This role provided a regional platform upon which Dr. Wright exerted unprecedented leadership in establishing standards for the provision of high-quality care to ill and injured children in the prehospital setting.

It was also upon this platform that Dr. Wright built a 20-year relationship of continuous funding from the Emergency Medical Services for Children federal program and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in support of public health infrastructure and evidence-based practice as core components of regionalized trauma and EMS systems. He and his national collaborators chronicled their groundbreaking work in a special supplement issue of the journal Prehospital Emergency Care, which remains a highly-cited and valuable reference today.

Suffice it to say that building collaborations, inspiring partnerships, connecting leaders, and speaking truth to power represent the soundtrack of Dr. Wright’s career and professional lived experience.

Beyond his work in the clinical and public health arena, Dr. Wright spent two decades in successive administrative leadership at Children’s National Hospital where he provided strategic direction for the organization’s community partnerships, public policy positions, and launched the Child Health Advocacy Institute, the nation’s first such unit based in an academic medical center.

Today, as the Senior Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Wright is leading national efforts in the organized medicine space to ensure optimal care for all children and their families through mitigation of the structural inequities and the social drivers that contribute to outcome disparities.

He remains academically active as an Adjunct Professor of Emergency Medicine, Pediatrics, and Health Policy at George Washington University lecturing widely across the country and continuing to build on his scholarly interests of injury prevention and the needs of underserved communities with more than 120 contributions to scientific literature.

Dr. Wright is staunchly committed to building and supporting the next generation of scholars and advocates. The influence of his mentorship and sponsorship are manifest in emerging leaders across the country.

I am humbled that Safe Kids Worldwide and I are among those who continue to benefit from his thoughtful mentorship.

His endless commitment to children and families, starts with his own.

His wife of almost 40 years, Frances, and two sons, Justin and Christopher, who watched both their parents live lives based on caring for others, showing up, and advocating for ALL families – and are now doing the same with their lives. And those two little ones in the picture below are Dr. Wright’s grandchildren, so he’s learning all the latest injury prevention tips all over again.

Let me put it this way: It’s not just that Dr. Wright is completely committed to his work, it’s the WAY he is committed that sets Dr. Wright apart. It’s his heart. How he is genuinely guided by humility and integrity, and his drive to work every day and do as much as he can so that ALL children and families have a chance at a better life.

For Dr. Wright, it’s all about the people and even after 40 years, he still cares. He cares when families in his community call in the middle of the night or approach him at the grocery store or at church because they have a problem and they know that he’ll always be there for them – because he always is.