Echopedia

Dr. Suy Ming Sam Chou (周烒明博士)

9 min read

Dr. Suy Ming Sam Chou (周烒明博士)

Identity Snapshot

  • English: Dr. Suy Ming Sam Chou
  • Chinese: 周烒明博士
  • Era: 1930-2018
  • Geography: Tokyo, Japan
  • Core roles: scientist, physician, professor
  • Source: TAH Foundation Who’s Who

Dr. Suy Ming (Sam) Chou 周烒明博士 – History of Taiwanese American (T.A. Archives) 台美史料中心

Education

  • National Taiwan Univ. College of Medicine — 1957 — M.D.
  • Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison — Ph.D.

Employment

  • Univ. of Virginia School of Medicine — Resident physician, teaching assistant — (1963-) — Cleveland Clinic — Director of Psychopathology — (1981-) — Community — North American Taiwanese Medical Doctor Association (NATMA) 北美洲台灣人醫師協會 — First President — United Formosans in America for Independence 全美台灣獨立聯盟 — Co-Founder — Taiwanese American Parkinson Association 台美人柏金森互助會 — Co-Founder — American Neuropathological Society — Deputy Chairman

Timeline

  • 1930 — born in Tokyo, Japan (era range 1930-2018)
  • 1957 — M.D., National Taiwan University College of Medicine
  • Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • 1963- — resident physician / teaching assistant, University of Virginia School of Medicine
  • 1981- — Director of Psychopathology, Cleveland Clinic
  • 1965 — as head of the UW-Madison 台灣問題研究會, co-convened the 「麥迪遜會議」 with UFI chairman 陳以德 at UW-Madison, issuing a joint communiqué calling for North American Taiwanese unity
  • Chairman of the Central Committee, United Formosans in America for Independence (UFAI, 全美台灣獨立聯盟), formed at the Philadelphia conference; with 羅福全 he raised the funds for the New York Times ad carrying 「台灣人民自救宣言」
  • 1970 — one of four renowned T.A. (羅福全、彭明敏、周烒明、蔡同榮) speaking for the Taiwan Independent movement in Morgantown, West Virginia
  • 1984 — founded the North American Taiwanese Medical Doctor Association (NATMA, 北美洲台灣人醫師協會) as its first president, with 40 chapters under it
  • Co-founder, United Formosans in America for Independence (UFI, 全美台灣獨立聯盟)
  • Co-founder, Taiwanese American Parkinson Association (台美人柏金森互助會)
  • Deputy Chairman, American Neuropathological Society
  • 2018 — TAH encyclopedia #121 published “Remembering Dr. Suy-Ming Chou 周烒明博士”

Family

  • Wife: 吳秀惠

Legacy

  • TAH encyclopedia published a memorial entry on his death: [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/121-remembering-dr-suy-ming-chou||TAH #121: Remembering Dr. Suy-Ming Chou 周烒明博士]] (09/2018), alongside four earlier profile entries (#18, #23, #93, #2155) cited below.
  • He is the founding (first) president of the association behind |NATMA Foundation; his documented chapter tie is |NATMA – Southern California Chapter.

Sources

Role in the Community (corpus-absorbed)

  • NATMA’s founding memoir [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys74|Our Journeys #74]] records his recruitment campaign: he personally made phone calls encouraging Taiwanese doctors to join the association, working around the excuses 「居留問題」 and 「太忙」 by routing through existing groups (教授會、同鄉會) and enlisting trusted like-minded doctors city by city — 楊次雄 (Greater New York), 黃昭 (Michigan), 林靜竹 (Chicago), 陳惠亭 (Southern California), 蔡武男 (Washington D.C.) all responded enthusiastically (English version: [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys74-eng|Our Journeys #74 (EN)]]).
  • His own drafted memoir [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys81|Our Journeys #81: 早期（1960〜1970年）威大台灣學生在台灣建國運動所扮演的角色（起稿 2014/12）]] documents the 1960s–70s 威大 Taiwanese-student generation’s role in the Taiwan nation-building movement.
  • [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys259|Our Journeys #259（朱耀源, 10/2016）]] names him among the first movement figures allowed back to Taiwan around NATPA’s first Taipei annual meeting (1990), after nearly six months of negotiation shrank the blacklist from 84 named applicants to 3.
  • The couple’s story is told in the memoir [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/my-stories-856|TAH #856: 周烒明醫師與吳秀惠醫師的故事（上）(10/2022)]] — corroborating his wife 吳秀惠 as a physician; an institutional memorial file is held at [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/49897|TAH #649: 周烒明 / 吳三連台灣史料基金會 (09/2018)]]; part two continues in [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/my-stories-857|TAH #857: 周烒明醫師與吳秀惠醫師的故事(下) (10/2022)]], and a classmate’s tribute is [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/mystories324|TAH #324: 一對使我以台大人為榮的學長 周烒明 吳秀惠 醫師 (賴其萬, 09/2015)]].
  • As chairman of UFAI’s Central Committee he funded the 「萬里自由長征」 campus tour of 60+ universities with a bare US$400 budget — the 「能省則省」 road-trip of borrowed 同鄉 sofas and hamburger meals ran on his committee’s program ([[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys7|Our Journeys #7]]).
  • His 1965 co-convening of the 「麥迪遜會議」 with UFI chairman 陳以德 at UW-Madison, and the UFAI founding at the Philadelphia conference where he took the Central Committee chairmanship, are documented in [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys234|Our Journeys #234]].
  • As a founding-generation speaker at his first New York 同鄉會 gathering he shared the platform with 陳隆志 and 林榮勲 — the 「五位博士」 whose lectures awakened a later memoirist’s Taiwanese political consciousness ([[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys70|Our Journeys #70]]).
  • The NATMA founding memoir adds the 1984 detail: he 「振臂一呼」 to establish the association with 40 chapters, and the photo record of the 1970 Morgantown, West Virginia rally places him among the four renowned T.A. speakers ([[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys291|Our Journeys #291]]; [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/photo-albums-historical-15|Photo Album #15]]).
  • At NATPA’s landmark 1990 Taipei annual meeting he served as 生物醫學組召集人, personally inviting 彭明聰 and 吳昭新 to the biomedical session ([[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys47|Our Journeys #47]]).
  • In 1963 at UW-Madison he co-founded the UW Formosan Students Club — reportedly the first officially registered Taiwanese student organization in the US — after the ROC government pressured the university to block it; when that failed, his ROC passport was revoked, leaving him stateless and unable to return to Taiwan ([[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/ourjourneys205|Our Journeys #205]]; biographical profile [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/publications285|TAH #285: 北美阿里山—周烒明與吳秀惠 (林雙不, 10/2000)]]).
  • He translated 高木友枝’s 「台灣的衛生狀況」 into English (noted by 朱真一, 民報 2016-09-16, archived in the taiwanjustice.net corpus).
  • A 2016 tribute by 陳茂雄 recalls him playing violin in the 台大醫學院絃樂團 as a student, and — after retirement brought a Parkinson’s diagnosis, the condition behind his co-founding of 台美人柏金森互助會 — continuing to play; at a NATMA annual dinner he asked to perform to show listeners how he was coping with PD, but 周夫人 吳秀惠 persuaded him not to go on stage (2016)).
  • The same NATMA-dinner anecdote is retold by the author from the conductor’s first-hand view in the music column 週末漫談音樂(110): 音樂家與 Parkinson’s Disease 帕金森氏症 (2023-08): 周醫師 was seen playing violin in the 台大醫學院絃樂團 in his student days, kept playing after his post-retirement PD diagnosis, and asked the dinner host (the columnist) for a stage slot 「讓聽眾看到他克服 PD 病症的精神」 — the host agreed, then 周夫人 dissuaded him, and 「可惜這件事只有我知道」. The column places him among musician PD models alongside Beethoven, Quasthoff and Blind Thomas Wiggins. His English translation of 高木友枝《台灣的衛生狀況》 is also preserved in the TAH.org 台美人台加人 compilation 台美人台加人 (2024 archive) (dated notice: 周烒明英譯高木友枝的《台灣的衛生狀況》◎朱真一/民報/2016-09-16).

Deepen — 2026-09-14 (vault-only re-check)

  • Wikilink targets above (NATMA Foundation, NATMA – Southern California Chapter, UFI, and the TAH #121 memorial record) re-verified against live vault slugs; no broken links.
  • The Timeline, Family (wife 吳秀惠) and Legacy sections already absorb every fact present in the cited encyclopedia records (#18, #23, #93, #121, #2155). No further unabsorbed vault facts; no new biography invented.

From the record

  • 2015-12-03 — TAH encyclopedia entry #23 「23. Dr. Suy Ming Chou 周烒明博士 / The First President of North American Taiwanese Medical Doctor Association (NATMDA) 北美洲台灣人醫師協會 / 1984」 published — the profile record pairing his first-presidency of NATMA with the 1984 founding year. Bibliographic record only; full text stays in the vault. [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/23-dr-suy-ming-chou-e5-91-a8-e7-83-92-e6-98-8e-e5-8d-9a-e5-a3-ab-the-first-presi|TAH #23, 2015-12-03]]
  • 2018-09-16 — TAH encyclopedia entry #93 「93. Dr. Suy-Ming Sam Chou 周烒明博士」 published, one of the month’s Who’s Who profile records on him. Bibliographic record only. [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/93-suy-ming-sam-chou|TAH #93, 2018-09-16]]
  • 2018-09-16 — TAH Who’s Who entry #2155 「2155. Dr. Suy Ming (Sam) Chou 周烒明博士」 published the same day as #93, carrying the 「Suy Ming (Sam)」 romanization variant of his name. Bibliographic record only. [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/whos-who-2155-suy-ming-chou|TAH #2155, 2018-09-16]]
  • 2019-08-30 — TAH 「Senior Taiwanese American」 entry #18 「18. Dr. Suy-Ming Sam Chou (周烒明博士)」 published, the latest of the four profile records that link to this page. Bibliographic record only. [[works/taiwaneseamericanhistory-org/senior-taiwanese-american-18|TAH #18, 2019-08-30]]
  • Quote candidate (2026-10-13, deepen-x slice 10121722-27) NOT pasted: the candidate carried only the entry title 「23. Dr. Suy Ming Chou 周烒明博士 / The First President of NATMDA / 1984」 with no sentence of his speech or writing — a title is not a quote, and no quotable sentence for this person exists in the four listed records (all bibliographic-record-only stubs). No Quotes section added.

Graph View

Backlinks