Blum is a family physician and teaches at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, Tuscaloosa Branch. He is the Gerald Leon Wallace Endowed Chair in Family Medicine, one of only 20 endowed chairs in family medicine in the U.S. He is also the director of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.
Blum incorporates his talent for writing into his medical career by editing and writing for major medical journals including the Medical Journal of Australia and the New York State Journal of Medicine. Blum has been a guest on many radio and television shows on health care issues.
His favorite aspect about his job is the variety it affords. He gives lectures, sees patients, teaches medical students, supervises physicians in training, organizes museum exhibits-and often sketches his patients at various points throughout the day.
An academic life
Blum knew the first time he visited the campus that Amherst was the place for him. "It was perfect harmony. It was the view of the Valley from the war memorial that really sealed the deal. It was love at first sight. After that, there was no doubt in my mind that this was the school for me." Once he matriculated, Blum joined the Chi Psi fraternity. He particularly remembers the bonds he formed with many of his fraternity brothers.
Professor of English Chick Chickering was Blum's academic advisor and his favorite professor. Chickering's "Chaucer and Beowulf" class was one of Blum's most memorable at Amherst. He remembers it being very difficult and not doing particularly well, but he still insists, "I didn't care; I enjoyed every minute of it."
Blum considered becoming an English teacher; in fact, he was accepted into a Masters program at Harvard University, but the threat of the draft, along with a family member's suggestion that he could practice medicine in the mornings and write in the evenings, both were enough to encourage him to go to dental school instead.
Blum's thesis, "The way of understanding is partly mirth," was on the writings of Robert Frost and Henry David Thoreau, and he still uses the idea of "understanding through mirth" in his satirical degradation of the tobacco industry.
Blum remembers being close with many of his classmates. However, some of his closest friendships with Amherst classmates formed after his four years at the college. After reunion, he realized how many people he wished he had gotten to know better. "Amherst graduates are people you really come to respect, and it is always heart-warming to know how enormously talented everyone is," he said.
After college, Blum landed in dental school, but left after a year. He then wrote speeches for the president of New York University. While visiting a children's hospital one day, Blum performed a magic show for the kids and the experience rekindled his interest in becoming a physician. As a student at Amherst, he was a widely known magician and was even hired to perform at many school events; Chickering had him perform for his child's birthday where Blum earned the nickname "Dr. Balloon" by Chickering's children. The children's excitement, even though they were suffering from serious illnesses, inspired Blum. He decided to apply to medical school and matriculated at Emory University Medical School.
"Dr. Smokebuster"
Perhaps one of Blum's greatest achievements is his effort to stop the tobacco pandemic. In an article written in the alumni magazine, Terry Allen gave Blum the nickname, "Dr. Smokebuster," in honor of Blum's clever and fervent efforts to stop the manipulation of the smoking industry.
He inherited his thoughts on tobacco from his father. During the 1950s, his father pointed out the association between cigarettes and major league baseball teams. In 1977, Blum started Doctors Ought to Care (DOC) an organization of over 5000 physicians who published anti-smoking advertisements. DOC ended in 2002.
Blum gives 20 talks per year; he has given 1,500 lectures in all 50 states and all over the world to a wide range of audiences from grade schoolers to scholars at world conferences.
During the past year, Blum has worked to oppose bills in Congress which would allow for the regulation of nicotine by the Food and Drug Administration. He does not have much faith in government to effectively control and restrict the tobacco industries because cigarette brands like Marlboro simply put new products on the market to evade government regulations. He prefers the strategy of medical activism as opposed to the public health care model which is too legislative. Blum comments that "[he] wants to get outside the system in order to make effective changes."
Aside from being an activist against the tobacco industry and an educator on the devastating health problems caused by tobacco, Blum has the largest archive of tobacco advertisements and promotions from the 20th century. His collection consists of 500,000 original pieces which includes advertisements for cigarettes from the '50s and '60s that we would find ridiculous today. One of these "over-the-top, crazy ads" is entitled, "More Doctors Smoke Camels." Advertisements such as these make the smoking industry an easy target for an extremely funny and witty man like Blum. Instead of pointing a finger at the tobacco companies, Blum prefers the satirical approach. His comical approach has led people to call him the "Bart Simpson" of tobacco wars. Chickering, however, prefers to think of his former student as the Gary Trudeau (the Doonesbury cartoonist) of the anti-smoking battles.
Blum creates exhibits out of his collection. Most recently, he helped arrange an exhibit called "Up in Smoke" illustrating the decade-long battle by flight attendants to get smoking off airlines. This exhibit is now open in the San Francisco Aviation Museum. Another recent project of Blum's is an exhibition entitled "Cartoonists Take Up Smoking." He produced this exhibition with the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. The show features cartoons by 80 artists, as well as historical material from Blum's archive.
The artist
While making his rounds, Blum not only treats his patients, but draws them and includes an explanation of the patients' stories. Blum spent 25 years producing the drawings. He uses the artistic and humorous qualities of his personality every day whether treating patients, teaching medicine, educating people on health issues related to tobacco or working as an influential activist against tobacco products. However, most importantly, Blum brings poetry and artistic splendor to the often overly calculated world of science.
Blum's combination of his education, his love of art, his passion for medicine and his wonderful sense of humor has made him a great warrior in the fight against smoking. "Dr. Smokebuster" offers an alternate view on the seemingly strict discipline of medicine. Blum embodies the philosophy of the liberal arts, using a variety of disciplines to communicate his message.
Blum has been married to his wife, Doris, for 29 years. They have three sons.