News and views from Emory School of Medicine alumni FALL 2020
IN TUNE TO A
Different Rhythm As Deputy Director for Public Health Service and Implementation Science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rear Admiral Stephen C. Redd 83M spent March 11 testifying during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on “Confronting the Coronavirus: The Federal Response.” “As we begin to see community spread of this virus, it will be important for all of us to take action in preventing its spread through common sense public health precautions,” Redd told the committee on the day the virus’s spread was declared a pandemic, in the hearing covered by C-SPAN. Redd had been thinking about such a threat for a while. In a podcast for the National Association of County and City Health Officials that aired in August 2019, Redd talked about the health threats that keep him awake at night: an influenza pandemic, other contagious respiratory disease outbreaks, and weather disasters related to climate change. Redd’s words were prophetic given the events of 2020: the coronavirus pandemic, wildfires in California, and powerful hurricanes. “The nature of our work is to be ready for the threats we can identify and be able to pivot to respond to events that are of even greater consequence,” said Redd in the podcast. “When we’re in an emergency response, we can fail to accept or appreciate the uncertainties, and we think we know more than we do. Maintaining a sense of humility and
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contingency is really important.” Redd is poised to retire from CDC this year. One lesson he has carried with him throughout his 35-year career is that medicine and public health have distinct tempos. He became aware of the difference following his second year of study at Emory School of “My training at Emory was a great experience, I had Medicine, when he held the chance to rotate through Grady, the Atlanta VA a summer job in CDC’s Medical Center, and Emory’s hospitals.” reproductive health division. He happened to work there in 1981, when the first cases of “There was a different rhythm at AIDS were diagnosed. “CDC was a much CDC,” Redd says. “During my residency smaller place then,” says Redd. “Even and at Grady, I stayed up nights taking though I didn’t work on HIV, I was able care of patients The hours were long and to attend lectures on pneumocystis and the feedback from patients was immediKaposi’s sarcoma. Everyone at CDC was ate. As an EIS officer, I investigated disease trying to figure out how to deal with the outbreaks, which was totally different.” growing AIDS epidemic. It gave me a taste Shortly after completing EIS training, of something different that I could do Redd traveled to West Africa to assess the with my medical degree.” feasibility of conducting a pneumococcal Redd went on to graduate from vaccine trial in Senegal. Following EIS, Emory and complete a medicine resRedd remained at CDC, leading childidency at Johns Hopkins University hood survival projects (acute respiratory School of Medicine. In 1985, he returned infections and malaria) in Africa and to Atlanta, his hometown, and CDC to efforts to eliminate measles in the United serve as an officer with the Epidemic States (achieved in 2000). Intelligence Service (EIS). For some time, When terrorists attacked the US in he also volunteered as an attending 2001, Redd was working in CDC’s National on the medicine service at Grady Center for Environmental Health to Memorial Hospital. reduce the burden of asthma. A few weeks
