HSPH Grad Dies In Flight 77 Crash

Paul Ambrose, a 2000 graduate of the School of Public Health (HSPH), died in last Tuesday’s terrorist attack on the Pentagon. He was 32.

Ambrose was a passenger on the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, scheduled to fly from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles, which crashed into the military complex Tuesday morning.

He began his medical career in 1995, when he graduated from the Marshall University School of Medicine, located in his hometown of Huntington, W. Va.

He went on to work at the American Medical Student Association as the Legislative Affairs Director before doing his residency in family medicine at Dartmouth Medical School from 1996 to 1999.

Ambrose attended HSPH from 1999 to 2000, concentrating on family and community health.

At the time of his death, Ambrose was working with the Surgeon General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He was flying to Los Angeles to attend a conference on obesity issues.

Friends and colleagues describe Ambrose as a talented and caring doctor with a bright career in his future.

“Paul was a brilliant physician who was very sensitive,” Dr. David Satcher, the surgeon general, told the Washington Times. “He was an up-and-coming star in the area of public health. He was destined to be one of the great leaders.”

He had just completed a paper on juvenile obesity, titled “A Call to Action,” before his ill-fated plane ride. He was also in the midst of a two-year fellowship awarded to him by the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine.

“He was an extremely talented physician, researcher and policy maker with boundless energy,” said Dr. Sean David, who attended both Dartmouth and Harvard with Ambrose. “I believe he would have achieved the stature of Surgeon General or even a U.S. Senator had he been able to live out his career.”

More than anything, though, friends remember Ambrose’s warm and adventurous spirit.

“He was a joker and he was a lady’s man,” David remembered. “He was a hell of a good guy and this is not only a great personal loss but also to public health.”

Ambrose’s fun-loving ways were as much a part of his personality as his commitment to science.

“Paul was the only person I ever met who was as comfortable at a rave as he was at a conference on health-delivery deficiencies in appalachia,” said Christopher Durso, his best friend. “He was smart and funny and just completely himself, and one of the truest friends I ever had—the kind of friend who helps you know yourself better.”

Erin Fuller, who worked at the American Medical Student Association with Ambrose, said he was constantly active—whether he was practicing judo, rock climbing, reading or watching movies.

Outside of his job at the Surgeon General’s office, Ambrose worked at a clinic in Arlington in order to maintain his clinical skills and his fluency in Spanish.

“Paul was one of the most interesting and unpredictable people I have ever known, and a generous and loyal friend,” Fuller said. “His quirky sense of humor, his genuine interest in other people and his passion to help people will continue to live on.”

Ambrose is survived by his fiancee, Bianca Angelino. The couple, who had been engaged for two weeks, had planned to marry next September in Spain.

His parents have established the SOM Paul Ambrose Fund at Marshall in his memory, which provides scholarships for medical school students.