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Category: Diversity, Inclusion, & Accessibility

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Clara Bliss Hinds
Clara Bliss Hinds with the Columbian University School of Medicine Class of 1887

Clara Bliss Hinds Finley, MD was a lifelong resident of Washington,DC. Her father, Doctor Willard Bliss, served as an army surgeon in the Civil War and later ran the Armory Square Hospital.1 He is remembered for his bungled treatment of President Garfield’s gunshot wound suffered in an assassination attempt in 1881. Bliss rejected the new field of antiseptic medicine and Garfield died of septic infection after two months of repeated probing for the bullet with unsterilized hands and instruments.2

Clara was the second of Bliss’s four children and was described as an 1870’s era debutante in Washington.3  She married Jerome Hinds and they had a daughter named Bliss who would become a suffragist fundraiser and organizer.4  Clara sued for divorce after Hinds abandoned them. As a single mother in her 30s she pursued admittance to a medical school in order to support herself and her child. “A degree would mean bread and butter to me.” she told a Washington Post reporter in 1934.3

It was a hard road for 19th century women who aspired to be physicians. Few schools would admit them and it took influence and persistence to break down those barriers. Clara received support from another woman physician who helped blaze the trail before her.

“Repeated seeking for admission into D.C. medical schools brought many rebuffs, but she was given inspiration and encouragement by Dr. Mary Parsons, one of the few successful women physicians in the country at that time...”3

Dr. Parsons graduated from medical school at Howard University in 1874. When she graduated the Medical Society of the District of Columbia refused to grant her a medical license. She petitioned Congress to amend the Society’s charter to license women. The bill passed in 1875 but the Society and the AMA continued to refuse her membership for three more years. In 1878, as support for females doctors was growing, medical societies started admitting women members and granting consultation privileges.5 

Clara and four other women were admitted to the Columbian University Medical School, now George Washington University School of Medicine in 1884. Of medical school, she recalled,

“They were grinding years...Competing in what was then regarded as purely man’s work, we were doing what no woman had done in the school before us. We asked no favors, and would receive none”3

Clara was the first of the women to graduate with fifty male colleagues in 1887. She and the other women who completed the program were not given opportunities for internships or residencies. Fortunately, Clara met Dr. Ida Heiberger who graduated from the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia and did post graduate work in Europe. Together they established the Washington Women’s Clinic in 1891 at 13th and T Streets and this is where Dr. Bliss got her clinical training along with other women physicians. The clinic served indigent women and children. Clinic hours were in the evenings so working women would not have to give up a day’s wages to get care.6 The Clinic later moved to 4704 Georgia Avenue, NW and operated for 60 years. 

Dr. Bliss established a successful private practice and published research on children’s growth patterns. She was a proponent of women’s physical fitness, establishing the first gymnasium for women in DC where they could remove their corsets and other constricting clothing of the day and move freely. Serving as the gym’s medical director helped to supplement her income.7 

Clara married again in 1894 to Henry Jennings Finley, a Washington, DC attorney. That year she and a group of other prominent women founded the Business Women’s Club of Washington DC.4  Her involvement in professional societies and how they aided her education and career is the focus of a paper currently being researched by a group at SMHS including Dr. Kirsten Brown, Professor of Anatomy, Dr. Victoria Shanmugam, Director of the George Washington University Division of Rheumatology, Dr. Nadine Mbuyi, Assistant Professor of Medicine, and Sara Hoover, Himmelfarb Library’s Scholarly Communications and Metadata Librarian.

Dr. Bliss died in 1940 and is buried in Rockville Cemetery alongside Henry and her daughter Bliss.8

Today Dr. Bliss is honored as the namesake of the  Clara Bliss Hinds Society for Women in Medicine and Science at GW. The group oversees programs that help to support women faculty including regular meetings and an Annual Women in Leadership Event. On April 14th the Society will host a program on Achieving Gender Equity in Compensation and Career Advancement via Webex from 5-6pm.

To learn more about women pioneers in medicine in the DC area, check out Women Doctors in Gilded Age Washington: Race, Gender, and Professionalization, available in Himmelfarb’s circulating book collection.

References

1. Doctor Willard Bliss, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Willard_Bliss

2. Murder of a President, Who’s Who. American Experience (website), PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/garfield-whoswho/

3. Butler M. First Woman M.D. Here Fought Pioneer Battle Dr. Bliss Recalls Those Grinding Years When She Was Trying to Gain Admission to Medical School and, Afterward, to Get Established, The Washington Post, June 6, 1934.  http://edwinwashingtonproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Heiberger_Ida-Bio.pdf

4. Hammond W and LaBrie A. Biographical Sketch of Bliss Finley, 1881-1970. Biographical Database of Militant Woman Suffragists, 1913-1920. Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2015. https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1008297916

5. Mary Almera Parsons, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Almera_Parsons

6. Hildebrand JR. Woman’s Clinic Has Blazed Path for Medical School for Women Physicians. The Washington Times Home Edition, August 19,1914. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1914-08-19/ed-2/seq-8/

7. Creese, MRS. Clara Bliss Hinds. Ladies in the Laboratory? American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900: A Survey of their Contributions to Research. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998. p. 166

8. Dr. Clara Bliss Finley, Find a Grave (website), https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46183535/clara-finley

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Published on 1 Comment on Clara Barton: A Life of Service

Black and white profile portrait of Clara Barton.
[Clara Barton portrait 1]. U.S. National Library of Medicine Digital Collections. http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101409980

In an effort to remain accountable to communities who have been negatively impacted by past and present medical injustices, the staff at Himmelfarb Library is committed to the work of maintaining an anti-discriminatory practice. We will uplift and highlight diverse stories throughout the year, and not shy away from difficult conversations necessary for health sciences education. To help fulfill this mission, today's blog post will cover Clara Barton.

Clara (Clarissa) Harlowe Barton, is perhaps best known as the founder of the American Red Cross. But Barton’s impact stretches far beyond her work with the Red Cross. “Her intense devotion to serving others resulted in enough achievements to fill several ordinary lifetimes” (American Red Cross, n.d.).

Born in 1821 in North Oxford, Massachusetts, she was the youngest of five children. When she was 11 years old, an older brother was seriously injured in a fall. Barton spent two years nursing him back to health until he was fully recovered. While Barton would never have any formal training as a nurse, this experience proved to be indispensable. She later wrote about the experience stating:

“I learned to take all directions for his medicine from his physician…and to administer them like a genuine nurse. My little hands became schooled to the handling of the great, loathsome, crawling leeches which were at first so many snakes to me, and no fingers could so painlessly dress the angry blisters; and thus it came about, that I was the accepted and acknowledged nurse of a man almost too ill to recover.”

(Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 2021)

Despite this early nursing experience, Barton would not embrace a nursing career until later in life. At the age of seventeen, Barton worked as a teacher in North Oxford, Massachusetts (Clara Barton Birthplace Museum, 2017). Twelve years later, she opened the first free public school in Bordertown, New Jersey (Clara Barton Birthplace Museum, 2017). The school grew from only six students on the first day of classes to more than 200 students by the end of the school year (Clara Barton Birthplace Museum, 2017). When the school opened in the fall of 1853, Barton was shocked to learn that a man had been hired as the school’s principal, earning twice her salary to run the school that she had founded and made successful. Outraged at this news, she resigned her teaching position. “I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man’s work for less than a man’s pay” she proclaimed.

The following year, Barton moved to Washington, D.C. to be “one of only a few female clerks at the US Patent Office and the only woman in her office receiving a salary equal to the male clerks” (National Park Service, 2020). As one of the first women employees of the federal government, she faced harassment from her male colleagues who “tried to besmirch her good name and get her fired” (National Park Service, 2020). 

Black and white picture of Clara Barton.
[Clara Barton portrait 2]. U.S. National Library of Medicine Digital Collections. http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101409986

In 1861, Barton moved into a boarding house on 7th St., now the site of the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum. The Civil War had just begun, and Barton saw a need for providing supplies and personal assistance to men in uniform. She began collecting supplies and obtained passes from the government to deliver her supplies and services to the front lines and field hospitals. After appearing “at a field hospital at midnight with a wagon-load of supplies,” she became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield” (American Red Cross, n.d.). She nursed, comforted, and cooked for the wounded often at great personal risk to her own safety. On one account, “as she knelt down to give one man a drink, she felt her sleeve quiver. She looked down, noticed a bullet hole in her sleeve, and then discovered that the bullet had killed the man she had been helping” (National Park Service, 2020).

As the war drew to a close, Barton often found herself responding to letters from family members looking for missing soldiers. Again seeing a need, Barton established the Office of Correspondence with Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army. Barton and her assistants received and answered more than 63,000 letters and identified more than 22,000 missing men. Some of these men were still alive. Years later, the “Red Cross established a tracing service, one of the organization’s most valued activities today” (American Red Cross, n.d.). 

In 1869, Barton took a trip to Switzerland where she learned about the International Red Cross. Barton appealed to three sitting US Presidents to sign the Geneva Treaty (American Red Cross, n.d.). In 1882, President Chester Authur signed the treaty, and it was ratified by the Senate (American Red Cross, n.d.). Under Barton’s leadership, the American Red Cross helped victims of forest fires in Michigan, survivors of the Johnstown flood, famine in Russia, hurricane and tidal wave relief in a predominantly African-American community in the Sea Islands of South Carolina just to name a few (American Red Cross, n.d.). “The American Red Cross, with Barton at its head, was largely devoted to disaster relief for the first 20 years of its existence” (American Red Cross, n.d.). 

Picture of Clara Barton's home in Glen Echo, Maryland.
Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2011631520/

A Red Cross supply warehouse in Glen Echo, Maryland served as the first permanent headquarters of the Red Cross, as well as Barton’s home. She lived here for the last 15 years of her life until her death on April 12, 1912. This site is now the Clara Barton National Historic Site. While this site is currently closed due to the pandemic, it is well worth touring if you have the opportunity in the future. 

In 1904, at the age of 82, Barton stepped down from the Red Cross. Today’s American Red Cross still focuses on providing disaster relief, and the mission has been expanded to include: providing lifesaving blood through their blood donation program; providing training and certification courses in lifesaving skills such as first aid, CPR, and AED use; providing international disaster relief services; and helping military families prepare for and cope with the challenges of military service.

During her lifetime, Barton was also a strong supporter of women’s rights. She supported suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frances D. Gage, and often spoke publicly in favor of equal rights for women (Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 2021). Barton dedicated her life to the service of others as a teacher, a Civil War nurse, and founder of the American Red Cross. By dedicating her life to the care of others, she left a legacy of caregiving and disaster relief in America and abroad.

References:

American Red Cross. (n.d.) Founder Clara Barton. Red Cross. https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/enterprise-assets/about-us/history/history-clara-barton-v5.pdf

Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum. (2021). Biography. https://www.clarabartonmuseum.org/bio/

[Clara Barton portrait 1]. U.S. National Library of Medicine Digital Collections. http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101409980

[Clara Barton portrait 2]. U.S. National Library of Medicine Digital Collections. http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101409986

Highsmith, C.M., photographer. Clara Barton’s Home, Glen Echo, Maryland. United States Maryland Glen Echo, None. [Between 1980 and 2006] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2011631520/

National Park Service. (June 15, 2020). Clara Barton. https://www.nps.gov/people/clara-barton.htm

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In an effort to remain accountable to communities who have been negatively impacted by past and present medical injustices, the staff at Himmelfarb Library is committed to the work of maintaining an anti-discriminatory practice. We will uplift and highlight diverse stories throughout the year, and not shy away from difficult conversations necessary for health sciences education. To help fulfill this mission, today's blog post will cover Mabel Keaton Staupers, R.N.

Mabel Keaton Staupers was an African-American nurse who, through her relentless advocacy, was successful in ending segregation practices in the military during World War II. She also worked within her community to provide African-Americans access to adequate healthcare within their neighborhoods. Born in Barbados in 1890, Staupers immigrated to the United States with her mother in 1903 and her father joined them several years later. They lived in New York City, but in 1917, Staupers studied at the Freedmen's Hospital School (which is now part of Howard University) in Washington DC where she earned her R.N. degree.

As a registered nurse, Staupers immediately began to work to meet the needs of the African-American communities in New York City and Washington D.C. Together with Dr. Louis T. Wright and Dr. James Wilson, she helped establish the Booker T. Washington Sanatorium in Harlem, which treated tuberculosis patients. She also performed a study on the health care needs of Harlem residents. This information eventually led to the creation of the Harlem Committee of the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association, where she served as the organization’s first executive secretary for twelve years. Staupers advocacy work extended beyond issues that affected her neighborhood and into issues that impacted African-American nurses throughout the country. Staupers served as the Executive Secretary for the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN), a professional organization for African-American nurses at the time. Though the NACGN was eventually dissolved in the 1960s when African-American nurses were allowed to enroll in national, state and local nursing organizations that previously excluded them, NACGN and Staupers played a role in addressing the concerns of Black nurses at the time. 

Mabel Keaton Staupers continued her advocacy work and her efforts eventually led to the ending of a discriminatory practice within the military. During World War II,  nurses were allowed to enroll in the military, but the Army and Navy set a quota for the number of African-American nurses who were allowed to enlist. Staupers organized a letter writing campaign that encouraged President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other political leaders to eliminate the quota policy for Black nurses. Staupers also met with the president’s wife, Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to bring awareness to her cause. The discriminatory policy was repealed in 1945 and Black nurses were allowed to freely enlist in the military.

Because of her advocacy work, in 1951, Mabel Keaton Staupers was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The award recognizes African-Americans who have significantly contributed to uplifting the needs of the African-American community. Staupers also documented her experiences with ending the discriminatory practices in the military in a book titled, No Time for Prejudice: A Story of the Integration of Negroes in Nursing in the United States. Staupers eventually returned to Washington DC, where she lived until her death in 1989 at the age of 99.

Mabel Keaton Staupers is an excellent example of using your knowledge and expertise to directly address the needs of your local community. Staupers understood that the medical needs of the African-American community was not being addressed by the broader medical community, but through collaboration and dedication to her cause, she not only provided medical care to her local community, but also fought against the discriminatory practices that prevented Black nurses from serving in their full capacity. Her story highlights the importance of uncovering your interests and seeing where those interests intersect with a need within your community. By working with others, you can greatly improve the conditions of your community.  If you’re interested in learning more about Mabel Keaton Staupers, R.N. visit our catalog for articles relating to this important woman. And be sure to read her book, No Time for Prejudice, to hear about her experiences in her own words.

Bibliography:

  • Staten, Candace. “Mabel Keaton Staupers (1890-1989) •.” BlackPast, 31 Mar. 2011, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/staupers-mabel-keaton-1890-1989.
  • The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Mabel Keaton Staupers | American Nurse and Executive.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Feb. 2021, www.britannica.com/biography/Mabel-Keaton-Staupers.
  • “Mabel Keaton Staupers, R.N., 1890-.” Journal of the National Medical Association, vol. 61, no. 2, 1969, pp. 198–99, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2611696/?page=1.

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Published on 1 Comment on Dr. Raymond Pla on Caring, Giving, and Outreach

In an effort to remain accountable to communities who have been negatively impacted by past and present medical injustices, the staff at Himmelfarb Library is committed to the work of maintaining an anti-discriminatory practice. We will uplift and highlight diverse stories throughout the year, and not shy away from difficult conversations necessary for health sciences education. To help fulfill this mission, this week’s blog post will feature a conversation with Dr. Raymond Pla, MD.

A photo of Dr. Raymond Pla
Dr. Raymond Pla

Dr. Raymond Pla is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at GW. He received his BS from Emory, then went on to Meharry Medical School, one of four HBCU medical schools, for his MD. I was honored to speak with Dr. Pla about his path to the health sciences, the work he does as a Professor at GW, and his people-first approach to advocacy, particularly when speaking with communities of color.

Dr. Pla did not always intend to go into medicine, he “had the same dreams that you commonly encounter when you're talking to young boys.” Even when he first started his BS program in Biology at Emory, he did not intend to go into medicine, though it was an option. The summer after his Junior year, however, that changed. Over the summer, he had the opportunity to shadow Dr. Clive Callendar at Howard University, going on rounds, in the ICU, and even observing in the OR. A titan in the field of transplantation, especially kidney and liver, Dr. Callendar’s high expectations of his residents, interns, and even the young Dr. Pla set a high standard for medical education. What most fascinated Dr. Pla during his time in the OR was “that person up at the head of the table, on the other side of what we call the ether screen… the anesthesiologist.” Eventually, Dr. Pla started observing with the anesthesiologist, learning what their role was in transplant surgery. Seeing the patients the next day, looking at their labs and seeing the changes in their clinical course overnight, was the second most impactful part of the experience. When Dr. Pla started at Meharry, his classmates reported he already had every intention of going into anesthesiology.

The impact Dr. Callendar had on Dr. Pla is evident, as is Dr. Pla’s desire to pay that influence forward in his practice and teaching. He described what he considers the two most important things doctors, especially those in academic medicine, do. First, “we care.” It is not just about an accurate diagnosis or a successful course of treatment. The foundation of those things is caring - thinking about a patient’s condition in the shower or on a jog or sitting in traffic, jotting down a realization and following up on it the next day, revising the patient’s treatment plan based on these considerations and reflections. And sticking with patients, following them throughout their course of treatment. Dr. Pla described the importance of making time for patients as a part of this, saying “We’ll sit and listen when we don’t have time. When we’re busy, we have someplace else that we need to be. We will redefine where we need to be and where we need to be at this moment is sitting with this person, with their family, to answer questions. Or sit and listen.”

The second of these most important things is “when we give of ourselves to the next generation, the same way that someone gave of themselves.” And he tied giving back into caring, as it is part of caring. Giving can take many forms. Reflecting on your teaching, updating what or how you teach. Dr. Pla recounted a story of a summer he spent at the United States Naval Academy, and a Professor of Electrical Engineering he met there. This Professor received word that a pilot had overshot the carrier deck and put their plane into the ocean. The pilot was not hurt, but this Professor asked himself “Was there something I didn’t teach that young man that had I taught him, had he known, would have prevented what could have been a fatal accident?” Hearing from graduates of the residency program about how something he taught them prevented an injury or a loss of life, particularly in airway management, reinforces that you are teaching those vital things.

When speaking with Dr. Pla it is abundantly evident that teaching is his favorite part of the work he does at GW. He lights up when talking about “The Forgotten Four,” encouraging his students to consider treatments and medications that tend to be overlooked or kept in the back of your mind, and bringing those forward. Because bringing those forward can quite literally save a life. He considers that an “ethical duty, a moral duty.” The themes of moral and ethical duties as medical practitioners echoed throughout our conversation.

Recently, Dr. Pla has made appearances on local news, encouraging the African-American community to get the COVID-19 vaccine. As one of the first people in DC to receive the vaccine, Dr. Pla says he felt an obligation to speak to his community and encourage them to get the vaccine. There is an understandable mistrust of the medical establishment within black and brown communities. Most of us can cite Tuskegee, World War II, Henrietta Lacks, Baltimore. But when we cite these infamous atrocities we overlook the personal atrocities people of color experience on a regular basis. While there is still a great deal of work to be done to rebuild that trust, to eliminate systemic racism within medicine, there is an immediate need to get vaccines to these communities that are being disproportionately affected by the virus. Because when these communities see those who have earned their mistrust saying this vaccine is the only way forward, they “[have] no hope for a better future… a pandemic-free future.” Dr. Pla sees his outreach as a way to help bring hope back to his community, to begin addressing the legacy of racism in medicine, and to hopefully earn back some trust. He hopes to continue this work in a meaningful way, to encourage colleagues and students to do their part as members of the medical community, and to address the other epidemics facing communities of color - infant mortality, maternal mortality, advanced heart disease, breast cancer, etc., all of which disproportionately affect people of color. It is “a moral calling for those of us who value lives.”

There is still so much work to be done. But, as Dr. Pla argues, just because this is a daunting task does not mean we should dismiss it. It does not mean we should despair, or give up hope. During our conversation he invoked a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” It is a quote often invoked to remind us that the work we do today is but part of the work necessary. That the immediate is but a small part of the whole. Quite often allies, including myself at times, use this quote as an excuse to not take action when we are most needed. With Dr. Pla’s invocation, those of us who consider ourselves allies in the medical community should answer the call not to conversation, but to action. We must take steps to ensure communities of color are treated with dignity and receive a level of medical care that keeps them healthy, honoring their community-based needs and concerns.

To learn more about these issues and what you can do, explore the NEJM’s Race and Medicine collection; browse articles on systemic racism in the Himmelfarb Collection; engage with the resources and educational series from the Anti-Racism Coalition at SMHS.

To explore more of Dr. Pla’s work, you can browse his articles indexed in the Health Sciences Research Commons.

Published on

In an effort to remain accountable to communities who have been negatively impacted by past and present medical injustices, the staff at Himmelfarb Library is committed to the work of maintaining an anti-discriminatory practice. We will uplift and highlight diverse stories throughout the year, and not shy away from difficult conversations necessary for health sciences education. To help fulfill this mission, this week’s blog post will cover Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith.

Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, MHS was recently appointed to chair the U.S. COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.  Dr. Nunez had been previously appointed as co-chair of the Biden-Harris transition team’s COVID-19 Advisory Board.   The executive order appointing Dr. Nunez-Smith to the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force identifies the issue that while people of color in the United States are more likely to become sick and die of COVID-19, but incomplete data on underlying health conditions, social factors, and rates of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality have hampered an equitable response.  

Dr. Nunez-Smith grew up in the U.S. Virgin Islands and pursued her education at Swarthmore College, Jefferson Medical College, and Yale University.  Her understanding of the effects of limited access to health care date to her childhood when her father had a stroke in his 40s as a result of untreated hypertension.  The stroke left her father partially paralyzed and Dr. Nunez Smith described the experience in a New York Times profile: 

"He was a champion and a fighter. But my memories are of a father who had to live life with this daily reminder of how we had failed in terms of our health care. I don’t want another little girl out there to have her father suffer a stroke that is debilitating and life-altering in that way."

Dr. Nunez-Smith is responsible for an extensive bibliography of research on health promotion and health equity as well as research methods including primary data collection, data management and analysis, qualitative and mixed methods research, and population health.   While Dr. Nunez-Smith will remain in her position as Associate Dean for Health Equity Research at Yale University and a board-certified internal medicine physician, it's her work on the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force that is getting much attention.

Dr. Nunez Smith has identified some primary goals of the task force including addressing vaccination as well as equitable access to other healthcare services including testing, contact tracing, and treatment.  In a Fortune magazine profile, Dr. Nunez-Smith discussed COVID-19 vaccination in communities of color which are historically underserved: 

"It's important for us to acknowledge why there’s this hesitancy. People are going to be skeptical of vaccines, particularly many in communities where there is a not-long-ago history of experimentation, and where there are daily, contemporary reminders of differential status and access. But not every person or group that's skeptical of vaccines has their skepticism rooted in the same things, not even for every person of color who's skeptical. So we need to be thinking about targeted messaging; different people have different questions and motivations, and our response is not one-size-fits-all in terms of the information people need."

Published on

In an effort to remain accountable to communities who have been negatively impacted by past and present medical injustices, the staff at Himmelfarb Library is committed to the work of maintaining an anti-discriminatory practice. We will uplift and highlight diverse stories throughout the year, and not shy away from difficult conversations necessary for health sciences education. To help fulfill this mission, this week’s blog post will cover Dr. Charles R. Drew. 

Born June 3, 1904 in Washington DC, Charles Richard Drew was an African-American physician whose research and scholarship on blood banks had such a profound impact that we still feel the ramifications of his work decades after his death.  

Though he grew up in a segregated city, the African-American community in Washington DC was filled with well-educated, civic-minded families. At an early age, Drew learned  the importance of a formal education and engagement with your community which impacted his future medical career. While Drew was a great student, he was a far better athlete. After graduating from Dunbar High School in 1922, he attended Amherst College in Massachusetts on an athletic scholarship, where he was an important member of the track and football teams. There are several factors that eventually led to Drew pursuing a career in the medical field. He credits his biology teacher, Otto Glaser, with helping him develop an interest in medicine and science. In 1920, his oldest sister, Elsie, died from complications from influenza and during his college years, he was severely injured and temporarily hospitalized. These experiences pushed him to learn more about medicine and were the foundations of him eventually becoming a physician. 

After graduating from Amherst College in 1926, Drew worked for Morgan College (now Morgan State University) as an athletic director and instructor of biology and chemistry. He put aside money to help finance his medical school education. At the time, there were only a few medical institutions that allowed African-Americans to enroll in their programs. He applied to Howard University College of Medicine, but was denied admission. He was accepted into the medical program at Harvard, but the school wanted to defer his enrollment until the following year. Eventually, Drew moved to Canada and studied medicine at McGill University in Montreal. He graduated from the university in 1933 and completed his internship and surgical residency at Montreal General Hospital, where he would meet professor John Beattie, whose work on transfusion influenced Drew when he researched blood bank capabilities. In 1935, Drew returned to the United States to work for Howard University College of Medicine. 

In 1940, Drew was tapped to direct the Blood for Britain project. At the time, Great Britain was under attacked by Germany and was in need of blood and plasma. Thanks to Drew’s research on ‘banking’ blood, he was knowledgeable on how to collect and safely store blood for later transfusion without the blood and fluids losing their effectiveness while outside the body. His work as the Blood for Britain project was so successful that he was later appointed as the assistant director of a national blood banking systems program. This program was jointly sponsored by the National Research Council and the American Red Cross. 

Drew still faced discrimination and frustration within the medical community in regards to its treatment of the African-American community. He spoke out against the discriminatory practices that barred African-Americans from blood donation. Eventually the policy was amended, but African-American blood was kept separate from blood donated by white donors. Drew was also highly critical of the medical communities’ exclusion of Black physicians from national organizations, such as the American Medical Association. 

Drew continued to work to uplift the education standards for Black physicians and remained an outspoken critic of discriminatory policies and practices within the medical community. He died on April 1, 1950 after sustaining serious injuries after a car accident. Though he died at a young age, Drew’s research would continue to have an impact on the medical community and would receive recognition and awards for decades to come. Throughout Washington DC and the country, there are buildings and landmarks that honor the late Dr. Charles Drew and his legacy. 

Black and white photograph of Dr. Charles Richard Drew.

This blog article serves to provide a brief glimpse into the life and research of Dr. Charles Drew. To learn more about this prolific figure or to read some of his research, check out the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s collection titled, The Charles R. Drew Papers, which feature photographs, scholarly research, personal letters and other artefacts from the doctor’s life. You can also browse Himmelfarb Library’s collection for articles related to Drew and his research. 

Work Cited:

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Black and white hands clasping in unity.
Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

In an effort to remain accountable to communities who have been negatively impacted by past and present medical injustices, the staff at Himmelfarb Library is committed to the work of maintaining an anti-discriminatory practice. We will uplift and highlight diverse stories throughout the year, and not shy away from difficult conversations necessary for health sciences education. To help fulfill this mission, this week’s blog post will cover the School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) Anti-Racism Coalition (ARC).

The GW Anti-Racism Coalition is working to promote thoughtful conversations and active anti-racism efforts by the medical community. ARC recognizes the “ethnic and cultural diversity of the varied learners in our medical enterprise and their subsequent interaction with and care for an internationally heterogeneous patient population” and is committed to “the development and active implementation of an antiracist academic community to identify and eradicate all forms of racism and ethnic oppression.” While dismantling racism within the medical education community, the subsequent patient interactions and even within our interactions with each other is an enormous undertaking, ARC is committed to doing the difficult and necessary work towards reaching this end goal.

One way the group is developing an antiracist academic community is through the ARC Educational Series, a series of lectures and workshops centered around topics of race, racism, and anti-racism. The next session in this series, entitled Moving Beyond Bystanding...to Disrupting Racism, will take place on Wednesday, February 17, 2021 at 12:00pm-1:30pm. In this bystander training session, Dr. Lanre O. Falusi (MD, FAA), and Dr. Maranda C. Ward (EdD, MPH) will discuss how positions of power and privilege operate in ways that are often taken for granted. Characteristics and challenges of being a bystander and disruptor of racism will be discussed.

On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 7:00pm, ARC will host a discussion of the film Black Men in White Coats. This documentary examines the systemic barriers that prevent black men from becoming medical doctors and the societal consequences of this fact. The movie will be available for pre-screening from February 22nd through February 25th. 

Recordings of past sessions are available on the ARC Educational Series website. Past sessions include:

  • Understanding the Connection between Race and Social Determinants of Health
  • Medicine, Public Health, and Anti-Racism Activism: The Life and Career of Dr. Virginia M. Alexander
  • Race in America Lecture Series: “1619: Reflecting on the Legacy of Slavery in America” - A Conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones
  • How to Talk about Race, Power, and Privilege in Classroom and Clinical Settings
  • Structural Racism and Health Professions Education
  • “It’s Not You, It’s Me”: Preventing Bias in Personal, Professional, and Patient-Related Interactions
  • LGBTQ Health and Policy in the Biden-Administration
  • Developing a Dangerous Unselfishness

Links to additional anti-racism resources are also available. Whether you are you a long time-advocate for racial equality and equity, or are new to the plight for racial justice, ARC has resources and educational sessions available that can help facilitate your personal anti-racist growth. 

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Across the nation, many workers have this upcoming Monday off. While this extra day off might seem logical to continue our relationship with our beloved Netflix shows, it might also be a good time to take a moment and to think about why we were given this day of remembrance. 

Why do we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day, do you ask? Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) day was established to celebrate not just ife, but the birthday of a man whose vision and sacrifice changed the way our country not only thinks, but acts as well. 

King, who was the spokesperson for the Civil Rights Movement, was one man. A man who one day in August, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, shared with us his vision and what it means to be truly free. You can hear Dr. King in his own words and his voice in the audio transmission.

The entire speech is worth listening to, and worth holding onto. One of the most memorable passages from King was:

“I say to you today, my friend. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

This MLK day, take a moment not only to be grateful for King’s message, but to remember his ideals, and ask yourself what you think it means to be truly free? How can you apply those beliefs, those thoughts, and turn them into actions that can bring us closer not as Americans, but human beings. What can we do to encourage, teach, and to protect equality in our own circles? (While maintaining social distancing, of course.) 

During his speech, King also said:

“...When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Yes, you read correctly, the very roots that uphold our country’s standards were written with freedom and equality in mind, regardless of skin color. 

Reflect. What do Dr. King’s words mean to you? Respect. Realize that not one, but a great many lives were lost fighting for the chance to be considered equal. Remember: one of the most disrespectful things we can do is to forget the lessons that our forefathers have taught us, the rights they have given us and fought so hard to turn their visions of equality into reality. 

Last but not least, challenge yourself to make a difference not only in thought, but also in action. GW has implemented a Day of Service and Leadership workshop. Open to all GW students, staff and faculty members, the Virtual Service and Workshops will be on a variety of topics that will help you better engage your GW, DC, and hometown communities in service.

The event takes place on Monday, January 18th, from 1:00 to 4:30 p.m. Registration is limited, so sign up early! 

Be safe, be healthy, and treat others as you wish to be treated. Wishing you a memorable MLK day this year from the Himmelfarb Library. 

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Published on 1 Comment on What You Need to Know About Your LGBT Patients
fenwayMedicine Grand Rounds this Thursday, August 11 will focus on What You Need to Know About Your LGBT Patients.  This presentation by Shane Snowdon, MA,  founding director of the Center for LGBT Health & Equity at the University of California San Francisco, will discuss what LGBT people experience in health care – and how providers can be as comfortable and knowledgeable as possible in working with this long-overlooked group of patients.
Learning objectives for this session are:
  • Attendees will gain a useful knowledge of the background factors that influence LGBT patients' experiences in health care.
  • Attendees will learn the specific challenges typically faced by LGBT patients in general and by LGBT subgroups, including transgender people, elders and couples.
  • Attendees will learn personal and individual strategies for providing optimal care to LGBT patients.
Himmelfarb Library provides access to additional resources to support learning on this topic including:

 

What: What You Need to Know About Your LGBT Patients

When: August 11, 12 pm

Where: GW Hospital Basement

Published on
natureNature published a special issue on diversity in the scientific workforce (or lack thereof) and its effect on research.  The articles in this issue examine the connections between diversity and the rigor of research "including how marginalization affects study design."  The issue includes new articles examining the effects of a lack of diversity in patient populations and how that can bias research; the effects of economic and political inequality on global health research; issues in informed consent in mental health research in diverse cultures; the link between a team's ethnic mix and the number of citations their published articles receive.
Also, in addition to the new articles, this special edition compiles key articles on aspects of diversity which were previously published and includes sections on disabilities, inclusivity, gender, LGBTQ,  and class and ethnicity.
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