Stanley Frencher Jr.

Stanley Frencher Jr., the son of a primary care physician and nurse practitioner, likes to say he “was born to practice medicine.” A board certified urologic surgeon, he grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan, an area known to be one of the country’s most obese, violent, and underserved. When his parents moved the family to an all-white subdivision with better public schools, he enjoyed academic and athletic recognition, including being named a National Achievement Scholar and an All-County basketball player. He credits his experience growing up in two very different Detroit neighborhoods with inspiring his passion for addressing health inequities.

After high school, Dr. Frencher attended Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, where he was awarded the first annual Jean L. Cook, MD Memorial Award for Medical Excellence. He went on to earn a Master of Public Health degree in health management and policy at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. While enrolled there, he conducted research with the Center for Health and Urban Minorities, helping to identify health disparities across racial groups. He also worked as an intern with the office of Senator Charles Schumer where he gained a firsthand insight into the politics of healthcare policy.

Dr. Frencher completed his surgical residency at Yale New Haven Hospital. He interrupted his training to become a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Working with the American College of Surgeons (ACS), he sought to understand and eliminate inequities in the quality of surgical care through the ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP).