Steven A. Schroeder was born in Staten Island, NY. He graduated from Stanford University in 1960 and entered Harvard Medical School, earning an M.D. in 1964. He trained in internal medicine at the Harvard Medical Service of Boston City Hospital. He then became an officer of the Epidemiological Intelligence Service of the Centers for Disease Control and held faculty appointments at Harvard and George Washington University. In 1976 UCSF Chair of Medicine, Lloyd “Holly” Smith, recruited Dr. Schroeder to the faculty, where he created the Division of General Internal Medicine (1980). He recruited a talented group of junior faculty, many of whom are still at UCSF.