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Levister ’58
recognized for achievements
The California Medical Association Foundation has named Ernest C. Levister M.D. ’58 the 2004 recipient of the R.D. Sparks Leadership Achievement Award. The award recognizes Levister’s contributions to public health and service to underserved patients.
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer
(D-Calif.) congratulated Levister on his award by introducing
special remarks recognizing his outstanding philanthropic work into the March 2 Congressional Record. “For the past 30 years,
Dr. Levister has used his expertise to educate others, empowering
his community with knowledge. He has been honored for addressing the medical concerns
and questions of the Inland Empire’s African American community . . . . Dr. Levister strove
to make educational opportunities available to students of all
backgrounds, encourage African Americans’ entrance into and
continued progress in the medical field, and improve overall patient care. It is with great pleasure that I congratulate Dr. Levister on his receipt of this prestigious award.”
Levister practices internal
medicine and cardiology in San Bernardino, Calif. He is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California at Irvine. For nearly two decades, he has
authored a weekly health education column, “Our Bodies,” in
the Inland Empire Black Voice. Levister also cofounded the Technology Access Partnership Foundation, which makes
information technologies
available to disadvantaged
citizens and businesses. His
current community involvement includes diversifying the student and faculty representation at the University of California, Riverside Bio Medical Sciences Program.
It’s a long way from the
“low-rent” Harlem housing
development in which he grew up, said Levister, a chemical engineering graduate who was one
of only a few African American students at Lafayette in that era.
“In the 1950s, the societal norms and conditions were
socially and emotionally restrictive at best,” he said. “However, the lonely experience provided an incubator for honing my life
skills and building personal and academic strength. Lafayette would give me the seeds, tools, and confidence to become a beacon of light to the generations who must travel in my footsteps.”
Levister is the past president of the James Wesley Vines Medical Society and is the current president of the Vines Medical Foundation. He is past president of the California Society of Industrial Medicine and Surgery. He is also a member of the National Medical Association,
the California Medical Association, the San BernardinoCounty Medical Society, and the Los Angeles Council of Black Professional Engineers.