Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: African American History Month

  • African American medical pioneers

    Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States The road for African Americans in the medical professions has not been easy. Enslaved Africans received no education.1 During the first half of the nineteenth-century medical schools in the North would admit only a very small number of black students. Even after the Civil War, African Americans continued to be…

  • Dr. Rebecca Cole and racial health disparities in nineteenth-century Philadelphia

    Meg Vigil-FowlerGrand Junction, Colorado From the beginning of black women’s professional involvement in medicine, public health marked a central component of the scope of their practice. Rebecca Cole, the second black woman physician in the United States, began her career as the “sanitary visitor” in the late 1860s for the New York Infirmary for Women…

  • Character, genius, and a missing person in medicine

    Carrie BarronAustin, Texas, USA “He is the most un-talked about, unacknowledged, unknown and most important figure in the African American community…A genius.”1 In 1944, a surgeon with his trusted guide by his side performed the very first open-heart surgery on a fifteen-month-old, nine-pound girl. 1930, Nashville. A twenty-year old African-American man, honors student, and son…

  • Dr. Charles Drew, Philip Roth, and race

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States “My point is, if you have a course on health and whatever, then you do know Dr. Charles Drew. You’ve heard of him?” “No.”“Shame on you, Mr. Zukerman. I’ll tell you in a minute” . . .“You haven’t told me who Dr. Charles Drew was.”“Dr. Charles Drew,” she told…

  • “Without dissent”: Early black physicians in Alabama

    A.J. WrightBirmingham, Alabama, USA There is a brief but interesting note in the July 1953 issue of the Journal of the National Medical Association, the official voice of the organization founded in 1895 for African-American physicians in the U.S. At first glance this decision by the Medical Association of the State of Alabama—as it was formally…

  • “Mississippi Appendectomy” and other stories: When silence is complicity

    Alida RolEugene, Oregon, United States The world moves fast and it would rather pass u by than 2 stop and c what makes u cry.– Tupac Shakur, “The Rose That Grew from Concrete” She sits perched on the exam table in a too-large gown. We talk about a hysterectomy I have recommended, to remove the fibroid…

  • Freedman’s Hospital

    Yanglu ChenNew Jersey, United States The name itself, Freedmen’s Hospital, betrays a sense of bitter conflict: that there existed men unfreed, and they were not treated here—and that even the freed men had only this hospital. In fact, Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington D.C. was the first of its kind because it provided medical care to…

  • Provident Hospital – the first Black owned and operated medical institution in the United States

    Raymond H. CurryVeeLa Sengstacke GonzalesChicago, Illinois, United States Prior to 1891 there was not in this country a single hospital or training school for nurses owned and managed by colored people . . . there are now twelve! . . . and not a single failure in the effort!– Daniel Hale Williams, 19001 Emma Reynolds, a…

  • “Heard it through the grapevine”: The black barbershop as a source of health information

    Joyce Balls-BerryLea DacyRochester, Minnesota, USAJames BallsSt. Louis, Missouri, USA Barbering is an ancient profession and early records indicate that barbers played a role as community leaders. Elevated almost to the role of priests or medicine men, they typically offered bloodletting, tooth extraction, cauterization, and tonsorial surgery as well as grooming.1 As medicine advanced, they did…