Dartmouth College is scheduled to honor Dr. Chidi Achebe, CEO of Dorchester’s Harvard Street Community Health Center, with its the Martin Luther King Social Justice Award for “his ongoing commitment to the quest of bridging health care disparities.”
Dr. Achebe makes church calls, speaks at youth summits, conventions, conferences, schools, barber shops and other gathering places, and says he is deeply honored by the recognition and feels that the struggle against inequalities in health care is the “next stage of the civil rights movement.”
Dr. Achebe holds an undergraduate degree in natural sciences, history and philosophy from Bard College, an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health, a MD from Dartmouth Medical School and a MBA from Yale University’s School of Management. He completed his residency in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas.
He served briefly as medical director at Whittier Street Health Center, was an assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and medical director at Harvard Street Health Center before his appointment as president and CEO of one of the city’s oldest community health centers. He is the son of acclaimed literary icon Chinua Achebe.