Duke Medical Center Library & Archives News Tag: black history month

“There are now, people of color all over Duke Hospital and no one thinks anything of it. That would be his legacy... He said to me that when the Black medical students began to come to do, and no longer sought him out, he understood that the institution had changed. For a very long time, they always would look around the faculty and probably take a wild guess that the one African-American physician or one of a couple, probably had some say in their being there. Right, so they will go and introduce themselves. But there came a time where that changed. And that was not probably not as early as you would think. I'm sure that was well into the 80s. And, you know, a few more of them, and fewer will come by to, you know, to get advice or counsel, and that kind of thing. But to me, his legacy…

Tags: black history month

“It was interesting. It was 1969 when I first got here, and the hospital had sort of desegregated. And I say “sort of.” It's not a very exact term. On paper, it was, but in point of fact, it was not because there were private diagnostic clinic patients, and there were “staff patients.” In order to be a private patient, you would have to have money or insurance. Most of the African Americans and some poor whites did not have [those things]. So, they were in staff clinics, and you’ve probably seen some pictures of the clinics. They typically had two appointment times: 8 and 1. People would come very early hoping to get in line first. Some people would obviously sit there for hours waiting to be seen. There was a way of getting care and specialty care, but it was also really, really…

Tags: black history month

“As I said before, we only had maybe three or four faculty at Duke at the time, who were black. Dr. Moore was the only black attending an OB-GYN. There was Dr. Johnson who was in internal medicine, Dr. Jacquelyne Jackson, who was there in sociology, and one other black physician in psychiatry. So once he saw me and some of the other black medical students, he invited us over to his home to meet his family. And just to kind of give us some semblance of being with someone that we could understand where we were, and kind of what we're trying to do. And he certainly gave us a lot of encouragement, in terms of being able to survive in any kind of environment. And, you know, he would constantly tell us that excellence will always prevail. So it didn't matter whether you're black, white,…

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This month we are featuring "Black History Month: A Medical Perspective," our online exhibit containing a chronology of medical achievements of African Americans, a section on folk medicine, and a selective bibliography.

Categories: Exhibits, Resource Updates

Tags: black history month

“Every year we had registration, she would have a team of med students and doctors to give these kids physicals. [There] might be about 10 in the room, giving these kids physicals. She would ask for volunteers, but almost demand volunteers. They would be out there giving these kids free physicals, and that was done by her. And she kept a record on each kid, the whole thing. She kept and monitored that stuff, and tracked it all the way through the season, [making sure] that everything got better, even though they didn’t have real, real high blood pressure. But all that stuff got better as the season went along, and she kept a record of this. And then, if the kids had any kind of illness, or asthma, anything, she knew about it. [If] they needed medication, she would have medication.”   …

Tags: black history month

Tags: black history month

Tags: black history month

Tags: black history month

Tags: black history month

Tags: black history month

Tags: black history month

With the events of the past year, it has probably become clichéd to say that “we are living in historic times”. However, as we celebrate Black History Month this year, the reality of systemic racism and injustice is forefront in many of our minds. An important first step to addressing systemic racism is learning more about how race and racism is embedded in our history, including that of Duke Health.  The Duke University Medical Center Archives seeks to preserve materials that document the history of Duke Health and make them available for research and education. For example, we have been actively capturing and preserving the 2020 Moments to Movement programs… MORE

Categories: Exhibits

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African American History at Duke Medicine, a guide produced by Medical Center Archives, aims to introduce researchers to materials documenting the history of African American faculty, students, and staff at Duke Medicine. Included are oral histories, archival collections, photographs, audiovisual materials, and publications, selected key dates and key figures, and links to recommended digital resources.

Categories: Explore Tools, Resource Updates

Tags: archives, black history month

This look back at DUMC history features Duke’s Licensed Practical Nursing (LPN) program. When it began in 1948, there were already several others in the state. Duke’s was unique, however, as it was the only one in North Carolina established exclusively for training African-American nurses.

The program, known as the Practical Nurse School at Hillside High School, was a collaborative effort between Duke University Hospital, the Durham City Schools, and the North Carolina Department of Vocational Education and was established to address the area’s shortage of professional nurses. The idea was that trained LPNs would be a means of improving bedside care, as they could take over the duties that might have been previously handled by a nurse’s…

Tags: archives, black history month