Dr. Clive O. Callender is a native of New York, New York and attended New York's public schools and colleges. When he was a teenage Callender contracted Tuberculosis and suffered long and difficult recovery. In 1963 Callender completed Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee as the top ranking medical student. He completed his surgical training at Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C. in 1969, before receiving transplant surgical training at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Callender served briefly as a medical missionary in Africa before developing a medical condition that prohibited his return. Callender helped develop the first minority directed dialysis and transplant center and histocompatibility and immunogenetic laboratory in the United States and founded the National Minority Organ/Tissue Transplant Education Program (MOTTEP). Callender is a member of numerous professional societies, and serves as referee for various scientific journals.