Black History Month - part 1
African Americans in Medicine
There have been many significant African American in the Medical field; I have chosen to focus on three. I you wish to find out more about African Americans in Medicine try the book African-American Medical Pioneers by Dr. Charles Epps or the History of African Americans in Medicine.
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams graduated from Chicago Medical College (became Northwestern University) in 1883 and opened his first office in Chicago on Michigan Avenue. He was a surgeon at the South Side Dispensary in Chicago from 1884 to 1891. However, most hospitals at that time did not hire African Americans so her and a group of Black and White doctors founded the first black hospital in the United States in 1891. It was call the Provident Hospital and Training School Association, which also trained black nurses.
On July 9, 1893, Dr. Williams preformed the first successful heart surgery in the world. A young Black man named James Cornish was stabbed in the chest during a bar fight. He was brought to Provident Hospital. Dr. Williams was faced with watching Cornish die or taking action as no other doctor had before. He opened Cornish’s chest and sutured the damaged area (the Pericardium). Due to the surgery and Williams’ focus on antiseptic methods, fifty-one days later Cornish walked out of the hospital.
Dr. Susan Smith McKinney Steward became the first female black doctor in New York and the third in the country in 1870 (that’s 5 years after the end of the Civil War). More importantly, she founded the Memorial Hospital for Women and Children in 1881. She treated anyone who needed her help. With her second husband she traveled to various forts and treated African American soldiers. In recognition of her work, a Brooklyn junior high school was named for her in 1974 and a group of African American women doctors formed the Susan Smith McKinney Steward Medical Society.
Vivien T. Thomas started medical school in 1929, but had to drop out w
hen the market crashed starting the Great Depression. He took a job as a lab assistant at Vanderbilt University with a Dr. Blalock. This was a humble begin to an amazing career. As Blalock became busier, Thomas’ duties grew to include performing innovative cardiovascular surgical techniques in laboratory animals, which advanced Blalock’s work on high blood pressure and traumatic shock. In 1941, Blalock became chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins Medical School. Thomas joined him as part of the surgical team. Thomas and Blalock developed an operation to correct a heart defect in newborns (blue baby syndrome). It was based on Thomas’ earlier work. In 1944, with Thomas advising, Blalock and Dr. Helen Taussing preformed the first “blue baby” operation. The procedure was called the Blalock-Taussing shunt. (for details on this incredible operation see
www.answers.com/topic/vivien-thomas)
Thomas lasting contribution is as an educator. He trained a generation of surgeons and lab technicians as the head of the surgical research laboratory at Johns Hopkins from 1941 until he retired in 1979. In 1976, in recognition of all his work, John Hopkins University presented him with an honorary doctorate degree and appointed him to the surgical faculty. In his autobiography, Thomas wrote, "to have an honorary degree conferred upon me was far beyond any hope or expectation I could imagine." Today, his portait hangs in John Hopkins' Blalock Hall.
