NDCS Names Lovelace as New Medical Director

LINCOLN–(KFOR Oct. 31)–The Nebraska Department of Corrections on Monday announced that Dr. Jerry Lee Lovelace, Jr., has been hired as the system’s new medical director.

He will oversee all health services for Nebraska’s state prisons.

Dr. Lovelace has a background in pathology and internal medicine, and served 24 years as a primary care physician. Lovelace will be paid $314,000 a year. He most recently served as the medical director for a private for-profit provider of health care for inmates in the state of Missouri’s prison system.

“I am looking forward to working with Director Jeffreys and my colleagues at NDCS in delivering appropriate and evidence-based healthcare, as well as ancillary programs to decrease crime in the state of Nebraska,” said Dr. Lovelace.

Dr. Lovelace has more than 10 years of experience providing medical care and services at corrections facilities in Alabama, Missouri and Tennessee. He has also been a biochemistry professor at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Lovelace earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry, with research focused on opioid peptides in the human brain, and an M.D. from the University of Tennessee – Memphis. He also holds a certificate of advanced study in bioethics from Cleveland State University.