George Donald Porter…and daughter Circa 1965…my father was a masterful source of crazy dad jokes and often referred to me in public as Dr. Sumchai.
Founder, medical director and principal investigator of the Hunters Point Community Biomonitoring Program, Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai’s leadership in the environmental health and justice movement began on the morning of February 19, 1992 after signing the death certificate of her father — George Donald Porter — a career longshore walking boss and shipping clerk who died prematurely from pulmonary asbestosis.
Protege of Carlton Benjamin Goodlett, PhD MD, graduate of the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine and Stanford University Department of Surgery Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Sumchai was appointed to head the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Toxic Environmental Registry in 1997, and simultaneously returned home to the neighborhood of her childhood to establish children’s clinics as a physician specialist with the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
Medical Volunteers International/Airlift for Africa Red Sea Province Sudan January 1985
Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Surgery Stanford University Hospital — Flight Physician Stanford LifeFlight 1986–1988
Emergency Physician San Francisco Giants MLB Stadium Operations 1986–1999
Back to Sports 319 West Portal Avenue 2005–2010
Candidate for Mayor — City & County of San Francisco 2007
Dr. Carlton Benjamin Goodlett is depicted prominently in an original pastel watercolor rendition of him created by his loyal secretary Eleanor Ohman. Dr. Goodlett founded one of the earliest medical practices serving San Francisco’s African American community and the newspaper The Sun Reporter. He launched the San Francisco Chapter of the NAACP and led civil rights actions including support of San Francisco State University Black Studies strikers in 1966. Dr. Sumchai served as Editor at Large for the Sun Reporter and was asked to meet with Dr. Goodlett in 1972. He advised her to “go to medical school” and stood next to him when she graduated on May 30, 1981.
Dr. Sumchai joined the Bayview Hunters Point Health & Environmental Assessment Task Force — a community led SFDPH initiative — and the Community First Coalition EJ movements that shuttered the highly polluting PG&E Hunters Point power plant and adopted the…
