Goodbye, Dear Friend: Dr. Alex Tucker

Born in Sierra Leone, Tucker found his way to the United States to attend Fisk University in Nashville. He later followed his brother to Wisconsin and attended the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where he worked in a biology laboratory. Next, he earned his medical degree from the SMPH class of 1975, which had a small percentage of Black students.

Since completing a family medicine residency at St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee, he cared for patients from the greater Milwaukee area in his private practice and as the medical director and lead physician of Outreach Community Health Center. It provides high-quality medical and behavioral health services while maintaining its mission to serve people who are homeless, uninsured and facing extreme poverty. He served for years on the board of SaintA, which provides foster care, education and mental health services.

Tucker was an active WMAA board member and a co-representative of his medical school class. Over the years, he kept an eye out for promising students of color, and he mentored them throughout their medical education.

Lawrence Moore, MD ’19, MPH ’19, now a family medicine resident at Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, shares, “I am honored to have received a stethoscope donated by Dr. Tucker, who made a concerted effort to meet with me whenever he visited the SMPH. I find comfort knowing that he is with me each time I use my stethoscope.”

Tito Izard, MD ’96 — a family medicine physician, the president and CEO of Milwaukee Health Services, Inc., and a WMAA board member — says, “Dr. Tucker cherished each opportunity to encourage all medical students. His vision was to ensure that the future of health care would reflect the diversity of communities served by the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.”