J. Lloyd Michener, MD

J. Lloyd Michener, MD, is a clinical professor and chair of the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. He is a leader and mentor in the training of faculty at Duke, and has dedicated his career to improving the health of North Carolinians.

A native of Oakland, California, Michener earned his undergraduate degree from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1974, and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1978. He came to Duke as a resident in 1978, receiving the national Mead Johnson Award in Family Medicine in his senior year. The award is given to residents who display leadership ability, show exemplary patient care skills, and demonstrate community involvement and social commitment. He went on to become a Kellogg Fellow for two years, after which he joined the Duke faculty in 1982.

At Duke, Michener has played a leadership role in training Duke faculty, including a new master of health sciences degree in clinical leadership. The program prepares clinicians to become section chiefs, leaders of health care systems, directors of health plans, and heads of large-group practices. He has served in almost every role in the Department of Community and Family Medicine, including medical student director, residency director, fellowship director, clinic chief, chief of community medicine and chief of family practice. He became the department’s chair in 1994.

Michener’s work extends beyond DUMC. He is dedicated to changing the three behaviors that cause 80 percent of all chronic disease in the United States: physical inactivity, poor nutrition, and smoking. Towards that end, he oversees the Obesity/Chronic Disease Prevention Program of the Kate B. Reynolds Trust, a program designed to lower chronic disease rates in low-income areas across North Carolina, and he serves on the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund Commission, one of three entities created by the General Assembly to invest North Carolina's portion of the national tobacco settlement agreement.

Michener serves on the boards of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine, the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine, the Council of Academic Societies and the Executive Council of the Association of American Medical Colleges.