The "G"s

The “G’s”

A hospital like Homer G. Phillips was unique in it’s origin and especially in it’s function because it was born out of the need to provide health care for Blacks in St. Louis in the 1930’s.
Being a city hospital, there was a great deal of political patronage attached to the administration and services.
One example of that was the canteen wagon that was pushed around by Andy who had the concession exclusively because he was ?blind. The wagon contained every thing from candy to toothpaste to pickled pig feet to huge dill pickles, moon pies, potato chips and mars bars also pop,coffee,combs and hair oil. He had free run of the hospital and had to be run off the OB floor for bringing these forbidden foods to undelivered women with high blood pressure, swollen feet and toxemia. Even Dr Monat, the director of OB, couldn’t get him fired or even restricted. I question his blindness because every morning Henri would buy some thing for less than a dollar and tell him it was a five or a ten that he gave him and Andy would slide the bill over his eyes and say “ Dr Henri, why you trying to cheat me.”
Another patronage job was the newspaper carrier “Big Head Willie”, who was a paraplegic hydrocephalic who was confined to a wheel chair and roamed the hospital at will as well as lived there. He was probably in his early 20’s and was caught molesting boys on the pediatric unit. Because he resided in the hospital the administration couldn’t figure a way to put him out. I came up with this idea. I asked the switch board to sound a hospital evacuation code. Everyone was evacuated to the front lawn Willie included and then selectively we let everyone back in but him. That’s when the shit hit he fan. It happened that his mother was a precinct captain and she called the mayor and before I knew it I was in Dr. Sinkler’s office with some explaining to do. Naturally, Willie stayed with his perverted self; luckily I did too!


Because of the banking laws in Missouri, the chief financial officer of the hospital who also sold cars on the side was able to place hospital funds in a specific bank thus forming a cozy relationship for auto loans. This made it possible for everyone from the maintenance personnel up to the hospital director to buy Oldsmobile’s from him. The dealership would not allow a Black salesmen to work on their showroom floor. So we who purchased cars bought them from a catalogue and he set up the payments in his office and had the cars delivered to the hospital. My chief year I remember wanting a new car and going to his office, I selected a Cutlass. He asked how much could I pay and I said about $35/mo and he printed up a coupon book about a foot high that had 72 coupons. The longest loan you could get at any other bank was 36 months, but with the money he put in Liddell Trust gave him leverage! Oldsmobile never offered him a dealership in St. Louis but he went on to be one of the largest Cadillac dealer in Chicago years later.
All the physicians that were department heads had their own private practices, which most opened in the afternoons and nights .Because of that it was traditional the chief residents pretty much ran the hospital. The staffing done by phone or at weekly conferences. This is probably why when you became a chief you were pretty confident in your ability to manage most things. Seldom was a staff person called in and if one was it sometimes was a reflection on your competence. The nurses ran the hospital the chiefs managed the patients and the interns and residents did the nitty gritty work. When the white residents rotated over from Wash U they were at a lost without hands on direction and marveled at our independence. With all the inequities that we had, I can say without reservation that I had exceptional training and in the years that have followed matched up with anyone from any program across the country academically and clinically. I have no doubt the “G’s” made me the doctor I am.


In today’s world of medicine where evidenced based decisions are the mantra for diagnosis. I find it amusing when teaching students that my anecdotes of cases I have seen prove far more practical and fascinating to them then the management they are trying to absorb by rote. I tell them that knowledge in the field of medicine has exponentially expanded an unknown power but though they know more than me, I have seen more than they and that’s what counts in the end.