BIO –
Wally R. Smith, MD, Florence Neal Cooper Smith Professor of Sickle Cell Disease
at Virginia Commonwealth University, is a general internist, health services
researcher, and a national authority on health disparities, quality improvement, and
sickle cell disease.
He is past Scientific Director of the VCU Center on Health Disparities. He is past
Secretary of the Society of General Internal Medicine. He was the first AfricanAmerican Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar. He was a
member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Standards for Developing
Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines. He is a member of the Interagency Pain
Research Coordinating Committee.
He has published over 100 manuscripts, obtained over 50 externally funded grants,
been a division chief, directed a HRSA-funded general internal medicine fellowship,
and mentored many minority researchers to independent funding.
He cares for over 400 adult patients with sickle cell disease. He was the Principal
Investigator (PI) of the Pain in Sickle Cell Epidemiology Study (PiSCES), the largest
and most detailed adult cohort study of sickle cell pain. He was Virginia PI of the
Sickle Cell Disease Clinical Research Network. He is now the PI of the Start Healing
in Patients with Hydroxyurea (SHiP HU) Study.