Medicine and Health Care: Great Jobs In the Past; Great Jobs For the Future!

October 27, 2009

Today’s Information On African American History

Maybe it was because they were slaves, or descendants of slaves. At any rate, many African Americans have found good fortune in the field of medicine and health care. This was an area in which most slave kidnappers, slave traders, and slave masters paid little attention. Slaves were so plentiful that if some died early or slowed down because of health issues, there were other slaves to take their place.

As African Americans grew in awareness of the importance of health care, the field of medicine and health care for African American practitioners was wide open. Not many white doctors were willing to treat African Americans. At the same time, many African Americans had hand-me-down herbal and medicinal recipes they could use for colds, rashes, burns, bites, and a number of ailments.

However, some African Americans that had a serious interest in health and medicine and had opportunity for schooling made a concentrated effort to get through enough schooling in order to be accepted into some medical school. Again, not many medical schools were willing to accept African Americans interested in doctoring,

Dr. Charles Richard Drew, born in 1904 in Washington, DC, had interest, but everyone at Dunbar High School in Washington figured since he was so good in track, starring as a four letterman, and football that he would major in athletics. He even went on to “study at Amherst College, where his prowess in track and football won him the annual Mossman trophy as the athlete who brought the highest honor to his school.”

After graduating from Amherst, Charles Drew excelled as a coach and a biology and chemistry instructor at Morgan State College in Baltimore, Maryland. However, he had another interest: to enter the field of medicine. He left Morgan State and went to Montreal, Canada, enrolled in McGill University's Medical School, was granted two fellowships and was awarded his doctorate of medicine and master of surgery degrees.
Dr. Drew was an intern and resident in Montreal hospitals and returned to the United States in 1935 to accept an appointment as instructor in pathology at the College of Medicine of Howard University in Washington, D.C. where he advanced to become assistant professor of surgery.

Dr. Drew’s work at Howard University caught the attention of prominent professionals and he was recommended for one of the Rockefeller fellowships at Columbia where he could advance in all fields of medicine. While there, he met the famous Dr. John Scudder, an assistant professor of clinical surgery at Columbia University “who was achieving national recognition for his research findings relating to body fluids. Dr. Scudder had been asked to give overall direction to the Plasma for Britain Project [due to war challenges].”

Dr. Drew excelled at Columbia when he “prepared a 200 page thesis entitled "Banked Blood," which further alerted Dr. Scudder to the keen mind and talents of his pupil. The Columbia professor said the thesis was "a masterpiece one of the most distinguished essays ever written, both in form and content." He had Dr. Drew to assist in the international blood plasma development. While others had worked on such things on a small scale, it was Dr. Drew who put the work into mass production. The final product he developed was “dried plasma rather than the earlier liquid form that was sent to England. In dry form, plasma could be preserved for relatively long periods and administered under battlefield conditions. The outgrowth of this project was the American Red Cross Blood Donor Service during World War II.”

Whether racial or not, Dr. Drew was not allowed to lead in some other research furthering his development. He resigned and returned to Howard University, trained others to become successful surgeons, “received honorary degrees from Virginia State and Amherst Colleges in 1945 and 1947.” He was one of the first African Americans to be selected for membership on the American Board of Surgery, and received the Springarn Medal of NAACP.

Many saved lives due to blood plasma can be attributed to Dr. Charles Drew. He could have done more for America and the world if it hadn’t been for harsh racial attitudes during his day. When he and other doctors should have stopped and rested in hotels, they had to push on. Unfortunately, Dr. Drew was driving a friend’s car, had a serious accident, and died close to a white hospital. While many said that it wasn’t a racial thing, Dr. Drew was transported quite a ways away where he was pronounced dead.

A brilliant mind is a terrible thing to waste, but many brilliant minds like that of Dr. John Drew may have been allowed to go to waste when he was killed in an auto accident. He had saved thousands, probably millions of life from his work; he may have died because America hadn’t advanced far enough to give him proper lodging, thus preserving his life a little longer. He is credited with the most important bank in the world: The Blood Bank.

Credits:
David C Cook “Black America: Yesterday and Today”
American Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/museum/history/charlesdrew.asp

Next time: Inventions have helped make America a very innovative nation, reaping profits for many of its inventors, except for most African Americans. Next time, we will look at some of the African American inventions that have made American most prosperous.

What is October known for? Halloween? The Bilingual Child Month? Church Library Month? Church Safety and Security Month? Domestic Violence Awareness Month? Dyslexia Awareness Month? German American Heritage Month? Global Diversity Awareness Month? National Breast Cancer Awareness Month? National Crime Prevention Month? National Dental Hygiene Month? Polish American Heritage Month? Women’s Small Business Month?

Credit: http://www.brownielocks.com/october.html

You need to check out this web site…it may blow your mind: http://www.freemaninstitute.com/RTGseminar.htm

And, here are some more:
www.Black101.com
www.BlackChurchMissions.org
www.RosettaStoneReplicas.com
DID YOU KNOW? There is another resource to help you learn more about Black History?
Check out: www.yenoba.com
And another? Check out: http://www.blackhistorypages.net/index.php

SPECIAL NOTE:
Leave a legacy for future generations by helping to restore an armory for the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in 2010. Less than $4 million is needed for the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum to restore the historic Houston Light Guard Armory (1925). Buy a brick for $100 or $500 or $1,000 or $2,500 or $5,000. Have your name added in their “Legacy of Fame” hall. Get your NFL, NBA, or other professional sports relative to invest $1 million or more and thus give back to future generations by having a hall or room named after them. Get your relative in entertainment to donate $1 million or more and thus leave a legacy that will outlive them by having space dedicated to them.

Contact Ed Udell @ 832-216-7786 for your next speaker at your church conferences, youth meetings, community events, or for diversity programs, teaching writing grant writing, and/or teaching others about health/nutrition, and help for senior citizens.