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.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Medicine Rotation
One of the rotations as an intern was on Internal Medicine and many of the admissions are the chronically ill and dying. When on call especially at night it is not unusual to have patients that are admitted “in extremis” so the ER physician doesn’t have to write up the death…. avoiding the paper work. Usually they call the floor and say a patient is being sent up and the charge nurse summons an intern to do the admission. Once admitted, if the patient dies than the intern on the floor would do the paper work. Late one night I was already on the ward sitting at the nurses station doing some charting and I heard the elevator door open and out rolled a gurney with a patient. As I glanced up, I saw a person push the cart and quickly duck back in the elevator. Slowly the cart rolled across the space from the elevator and bumped against the nurses station counter. I got up and saw a shroud draped body with a chart on it’s chest.
What had happened was one of the ER docs was trying to put a dead patient on my floor as an admission so I would have to write it up. I immediately knew who it was (Henri) and I called the elevator back up and took the body back down and pushed it out into the ER. This game went on taking the body for several up and down trips until the prankster finally gave up. This may sound macabre but knowing the situation and the person this became a much repeated story around the hospital. Luckily Dr Sinkler didn’t find out at least we don’t think so.
Another time a morbidly obese woman was admitted for seizures and just as she got to the floor with her family and the ER orderly had left, she seized again and toppled off the cart. At that very moment the lights on that end of the hospital went out. I was there with only a nurse who weighed probably no more than a 100 lbs.
She quickly got a flash light and we pulled a screen around the patient on the floor and shooed the family away.
I whispered that we would roll her on a sheet and pull her down the hall to a room until we had light to examine her. Just as we started to drag her down the hall the light came back on. The family standing there aghast.
Dr Sinkler called me on the carpet and threatened to dock my pay.
I told him I couldn’t think of anything else to do. He said what ever else I did would have been better than the family seeing her dragged down the hall.
Later the nurse and I over drinks laughed until we were in tears recalling what had happened that night.
What was humor to us may be considered disrespect by others. But these things got us through some trying times.
And when working the floor on medicine at night if you complained that the ER docs were dumping patients be prepared for an onslaught.
I met some super smart guys who could manage a case when awaken from a stupor. One was Joe H who once mumbled to a friend of mine what dose of digitalis to give IV to an OB patient dying from heart failure and promptly fell back to sleep….but the therapy saved her.
What had happened was one of the ER docs was trying to put a dead patient on my floor as an admission so I would have to write it up. I immediately knew who it was (Henri) and I called the elevator back up and took the body back down and pushed it out into the ER. This game went on taking the body for several up and down trips until the prankster finally gave up. This may sound macabre but knowing the situation and the person this became a much repeated story around the hospital. Luckily Dr Sinkler didn’t find out at least we don’t think so.
Another time a morbidly obese woman was admitted for seizures and just as she got to the floor with her family and the ER orderly had left, she seized again and toppled off the cart. At that very moment the lights on that end of the hospital went out. I was there with only a nurse who weighed probably no more than a 100 lbs.
She quickly got a flash light and we pulled a screen around the patient on the floor and shooed the family away.
I whispered that we would roll her on a sheet and pull her down the hall to a room until we had light to examine her. Just as we started to drag her down the hall the light came back on. The family standing there aghast.
Dr Sinkler called me on the carpet and threatened to dock my pay.
I told him I couldn’t think of anything else to do. He said what ever else I did would have been better than the family seeing her dragged down the hall.
Later the nurse and I over drinks laughed until we were in tears recalling what had happened that night.
What was humor to us may be considered disrespect by others. But these things got us through some trying times.
And when working the floor on medicine at night if you complained that the ER docs were dumping patients be prepared for an onslaught.
I met some super smart guys who could manage a case when awaken from a stupor. One was Joe H who once mumbled to a friend of mine what dose of digitalis to give IV to an OB patient dying from heart failure and promptly fell back to sleep….but the therapy saved her.
Internship Part 2
Internship in year 2 alot was happening in my first few months of internship that was not strictly medical. We had a baby due in September and we were stuck in a rented room with privileges, that meant we could use the kitchen and bathroom; period! We had no access to the rest of the house, yet Mrs. Williams, a widow, regularly helped herself to our food. I was paying her $35 a month and what is really amazing she had two sons who were physicians and you would think she would have some empathy for a young struggling couple. I knew I had to find another place soon, but since I had to take my wife back to Indianapolis where she wanted to be delivered by Frank Lloyd, I figured I would find a place while she stayed with her parents post partum. The baby was due around the third week in Sept so I got coverage and did a quick one day turn around trip on the 1st to drop her off. As luck would have it on Sept 20 she was in labor and I had to go right back. Robbie, my first born, was delivered on the 21st of Sept and after seeing him I had to get right back to the hospital. Luckily, Al Holliday an IU classmate, was leaving an apartment in the Pruitt-Igoe projects. So I put in an application which I certainly qualified for based on income. The rent was $45/ month for a two bedroom unit and that included all utilities. On the 31 of October, I left Mrs. Williams room in the dead of night never to see her again.
The Pruitt- Igoe projects were a story in themselves, an experiment in urban housing that crammed low income black people into 33 fourteen story buildings as a social experiment. They had built 10 other units called Vaughn for whites, but they never moved in so these also became black. In fact, it became a high rise high density village, with concrete playgrounds and no green space or conveniences such as grocery or drug stores. These coffin like buildings were ovens in the St. Louis stifling summers where heat radiated off the buildings even a 5 AM the next morning. It’s no wonder that people sat out doors and children ran around well past midnight trying to beat the heat. And the heat and noise sans sleep provoked constant violence. There were shootings, stabbings, kids being thrown off roofs, babies being dumped down incinerator chutes, and police dogs constantly patrolling the buildings day and night.
The occupants (kids ) would bait the dogs to run up the stairwells and then turn the fire hoses on them and escape by going across a connecting service corridor.
I lived in these projects, 2311 Dickson St., the entire 5 years I was at the “G’s” and only had my car radio stolen. Everyone knew me as ‘Doc” and I would give out sample medicines also everybody at some point had to go to the “G’s” so I was looked on as their link to medical care. I could always catch a free ride in a gypsy cab if my car wasn’t running sometimes taking me out of my way but eventually getting me there.
In these buildings resided 13,000 occupants, a small city without serviceable elevators, incinerators or lighted stairwells also non working laundry appliances and trash filled halls. But we coped and on weekends music, laughter and liquor filling the air; everybody vented their frustration occasionally punctuated by gun shots. My living there was a priceless sample of urban survival.
When I finished my residency and moved on there was a sense of sadness that I could leave and move up in my life but my neighbors (some good friends) were doomed to remain in this high rise ghetto.
The Pruitt- Igoe projects were a story in themselves, an experiment in urban housing that crammed low income black people into 33 fourteen story buildings as a social experiment. They had built 10 other units called Vaughn for whites, but they never moved in so these also became black. In fact, it became a high rise high density village, with concrete playgrounds and no green space or conveniences such as grocery or drug stores. These coffin like buildings were ovens in the St. Louis stifling summers where heat radiated off the buildings even a 5 AM the next morning. It’s no wonder that people sat out doors and children ran around well past midnight trying to beat the heat. And the heat and noise sans sleep provoked constant violence. There were shootings, stabbings, kids being thrown off roofs, babies being dumped down incinerator chutes, and police dogs constantly patrolling the buildings day and night.
The occupants (kids ) would bait the dogs to run up the stairwells and then turn the fire hoses on them and escape by going across a connecting service corridor.
I lived in these projects, 2311 Dickson St., the entire 5 years I was at the “G’s” and only had my car radio stolen. Everyone knew me as ‘Doc” and I would give out sample medicines also everybody at some point had to go to the “G’s” so I was looked on as their link to medical care. I could always catch a free ride in a gypsy cab if my car wasn’t running sometimes taking me out of my way but eventually getting me there.
In these buildings resided 13,000 occupants, a small city without serviceable elevators, incinerators or lighted stairwells also non working laundry appliances and trash filled halls. But we coped and on weekends music, laughter and liquor filling the air; everybody vented their frustration occasionally punctuated by gun shots. My living there was a priceless sample of urban survival.
When I finished my residency and moved on there was a sense of sadness that I could leave and move up in my life but my neighbors (some good friends) were doomed to remain in this high rise ghetto.
Internship
I asked a friend from IU who was a 2nd year Ob/GYN resident what it took to be a good intern and he said “ you have to love to work, hate to sleep, hate to eat and….. when the chief ask is it? You say done” That became my mantra from then on.
Now we had call the Fourth of July weekend starting at 6 AM on a Friday and weren’t scheduled to get off until noon Monday the 7th. During that 72 hrs, we operated on everything from gun shots, stabbings, fractures, auto accidents, rat bites, bowel obstructions, etc. I have never been so tired in my life and as soon as I would try to grab some sleep I would be called to do another patient workup. I all most got in a fight with the 1st year resident who was trying to dump patients on me. On Monday morning, I was coming out of a particularly gruesome case my scrubs and shoes covered with blood. The supervisor of surgery, Ms Mable Norcross, a wizen gnome of a lady, who had been at the “G’s” since it opened, stopped me and said in her Mississippi way “doctu whar in d’ worl ar you goin lookin lak a butcha; get in some clean cloz and clean off dem shoes, befo you see da fambly”. “You heah!” That was an admonishment I have never forgotten. If she liked you she gave you a pair of brand new bandage scissors to keep. She indeed grew to like me and said when she gave me my scissors I had the hands to be a good surgeon. Which was as high a compliment that an intern could expect from her. Nurses at the “G’s did not suffer fools easily
When we finished our call Maxwell told us to clean up and get in our civilian clothes because he was taking all of us to the “Pine Knot”, a bar where the hospital employees hung out. It was about 1PM and no one had much sleep. The residents begged off but I was an intern and he insisted I go with him. He proceeded to get me drunk and delivered me to my door stoned at 11PM that night. My wife had not seen me for 4 days and all I could do was pass out in the bath tub. Needless to say she never took to Mays Maxwell
There were 4 surgical teams and each was assigned a specialty but all took trauma call. We were the Gastro-Intestinal team and
Mays was soon on his way to adopting me and becoming my rabbi. The event that bonded us was a GI bleeder that had esophageal varices.
We were all surrounding the bed of a patient that was literally spewing blood like a geyser from his nose and mouth. There was a cadre of observers including student nurses that everyone was also checking out. There was a device that no one had used called a Blakemore-Sanstaken tube that was inserted in the nose and down the throat into the stomach which had a balloon that when inflated compressed the esophagus and another balloon that anchored it in the stomach. Mays was reading the directions and getting ready to insert it when I said I knew how they worked, that I had put them down at the VA hospital in medical school. It had been developed at IU. He said “ no shit, then do it”. I had the patient chew on some ice, lubed the tube and slipped it in his nose and down into his stomach, inflated the balloons and anchored it to the head of the bed. When I was done he said “ son of a bitch, you do know how to put them in”.
From that day forth he made me his main assistant on all cases, showing me how to do cases the 3rd year ordinarily would do. I learned diagnoses and procedures, suture techniques and how to properly use instruments. I was given cases that no intern would dream of being allowed to do. Mays motto was we work hard and we drink hard. Needless to say my wife disliked him even more. But the saying goes “ medicine is a jealous mistress” and it wins every time at least it did with me and I was bent on soaking up every thing Mays could teach me.
Mays tried to convince me to consider the General Surgery residency and I was swayed but it was a pyramid system where they took 16 or so and cut to 4 after the first year and I didn’t want to waste a year. So, though I hadn’t declared yet I still favored OB/GYN.
Now we had call the Fourth of July weekend starting at 6 AM on a Friday and weren’t scheduled to get off until noon Monday the 7th. During that 72 hrs, we operated on everything from gun shots, stabbings, fractures, auto accidents, rat bites, bowel obstructions, etc. I have never been so tired in my life and as soon as I would try to grab some sleep I would be called to do another patient workup. I all most got in a fight with the 1st year resident who was trying to dump patients on me. On Monday morning, I was coming out of a particularly gruesome case my scrubs and shoes covered with blood. The supervisor of surgery, Ms Mable Norcross, a wizen gnome of a lady, who had been at the “G’s” since it opened, stopped me and said in her Mississippi way “doctu whar in d’ worl ar you goin lookin lak a butcha; get in some clean cloz and clean off dem shoes, befo you see da fambly”. “You heah!” That was an admonishment I have never forgotten. If she liked you she gave you a pair of brand new bandage scissors to keep. She indeed grew to like me and said when she gave me my scissors I had the hands to be a good surgeon. Which was as high a compliment that an intern could expect from her. Nurses at the “G’s did not suffer fools easily
When we finished our call Maxwell told us to clean up and get in our civilian clothes because he was taking all of us to the “Pine Knot”, a bar where the hospital employees hung out. It was about 1PM and no one had much sleep. The residents begged off but I was an intern and he insisted I go with him. He proceeded to get me drunk and delivered me to my door stoned at 11PM that night. My wife had not seen me for 4 days and all I could do was pass out in the bath tub. Needless to say she never took to Mays Maxwell
There were 4 surgical teams and each was assigned a specialty but all took trauma call. We were the Gastro-Intestinal team and
Mays was soon on his way to adopting me and becoming my rabbi. The event that bonded us was a GI bleeder that had esophageal varices.
We were all surrounding the bed of a patient that was literally spewing blood like a geyser from his nose and mouth. There was a cadre of observers including student nurses that everyone was also checking out. There was a device that no one had used called a Blakemore-Sanstaken tube that was inserted in the nose and down the throat into the stomach which had a balloon that when inflated compressed the esophagus and another balloon that anchored it in the stomach. Mays was reading the directions and getting ready to insert it when I said I knew how they worked, that I had put them down at the VA hospital in medical school. It had been developed at IU. He said “ no shit, then do it”. I had the patient chew on some ice, lubed the tube and slipped it in his nose and down into his stomach, inflated the balloons and anchored it to the head of the bed. When I was done he said “ son of a bitch, you do know how to put them in”.
From that day forth he made me his main assistant on all cases, showing me how to do cases the 3rd year ordinarily would do. I learned diagnoses and procedures, suture techniques and how to properly use instruments. I was given cases that no intern would dream of being allowed to do. Mays motto was we work hard and we drink hard. Needless to say my wife disliked him even more. But the saying goes “ medicine is a jealous mistress” and it wins every time at least it did with me and I was bent on soaking up every thing Mays could teach me.
Mays tried to convince me to consider the General Surgery residency and I was swayed but it was a pyramid system where they took 16 or so and cut to 4 after the first year and I didn’t want to waste a year. So, though I hadn’t declared yet I still favored OB/GYN.
The Homer G. Phillips Experience
Even today, I think the best times I’ve had in my life were the years I spent at Homer G. Phillips. Every thing about the “G’s” was Black starting with the patients……. the Medical Director, the CEO, the CFO, nurses and all department heads.. As I explained in an earlier chapter the hospital was built and opened for Blacks in 1937 because of racial segregation in St. Louis and their need for medical care. When the hospital became a residency training site it had to ally itself with a University for credentialing and Washington University became that source for the academic teaching staff.
Now this interaction resulted in a paternalistic relationship in which the “Great White Father” didn’t think we or our staff knew as much as they. So a game of one upsmanship was always in play. Little did they know that we could play the game too.
Each specialty during my tenure had a department head that was from the “G’s” and one assigned from Wash U. In OB/GYN there was Dr Smiley and Dr Monat from Wash U. In Surgery there was Dr Sinkler and Dr Moyer.
One time, when I was a 3rd year resident Dr.Monat swore that a patient had a huge ovarian cyst and demanded that she be taken to surgery immediately Dr. Smiley felt it was ascites (fluid in the abdomen)and could be drained at the bed side ( this was long before ultra sound scans). We were ordered to explore her exposing the patient to both operative and anesthesia risk. Well as soon as we opened her abdomen out gushed 10 quarts of fluid to Monat’s chagrin on finding that Smiley was right!
The problem for us was always the dogmatic certainty that Dr Monat pompously displayed. It became a challenge to be ready on any and all the salient things involved in cases he staffed.
He did his private practice at Jewish Hospital where we were not allowed to rotate and staffed at Barnes Hospital ( Washington U teaching hospital) which also allowed us no clinical experience though we were able to take pathology and endocrinology there. When you are considered 2nd class it gives you incentive to excel and we certainly did that; especially in combined grand rounds where our cases were some of the most complexed; since we served poorest and sickest of the population and our exposure to trauma could only be duplicated in a war.
One case comes to mind when I was Chief that stands out as one of the most complicated and in the end rewarding of my medical career. Even today I can recall it in the detail I relate here.
The patient’s name was Alverna and she delivered precipitously on admission a premature infant. She had birthed 10 living children and had received no prenatal care with this pregnancy. She had sustained some lacerations and my 3rd year resident was in the process of sewing her up when I walked past the delivery room and heard a sound like water running from a faucet, as I looked in I saw she was hemorrhaging. We immediately set about what turned out to be one of the most difficult cases I ever cared for. She ended up being operated on 4 times and on the 4th exploration she was still bleeding from everywhere in her abdomen. She had been given 40 plus units of blood, platelets, and coagulation products. The “God figures” from Wash U. had come and gone a given their imput and still she bled. I had been with her for 72 hours straight and had only gone home to get clean clothes and when I returned she was close to death as ever. I called Dr Smiley who was at home and he said take her back to the operating room and he would be right in. He said “ over sew lap packs to the bowel and send to the lab and get a large burette and tubing “. I said, “but she’ll get obstructed” and he answered “ we can take care of that later, otherwise she’ll die” So I did as he directed.
Smiley was a fast decisive surgeon and quickly took charge. The patient’s BP had bottomed out and was being maintained with drugs given by the anesthesiologist. Smiley started scooping blood out of the abdomen and filtering it through some gauze he placed on top of the burette and transfusing it back into the patient with the tubing he had requested. Within a couple of minutes her BP began to rise and the anesthesiologist said he had stopped any of the BP maintenance medications. And all the bleeding throughout the abdomen had stopped. To make a longer story short she survived. And that was the first auto transfusion that we had ever seen. I believe still, Dr Smiley created the procedure on the spot. Alverna lived and I told her on discharge that if she ever needed care I would take care of her free anywhere I lived. I have been witness to some dramatic cases but this is the one that tops them all!
One of the almost unimaginable conditions of my residency was the call schedule. Usual call is every 3rd or 4th night but OB/GYN at the “G’s” had it’s unique call. As an intern we were on call 30 days and nights with a ½ day off for personal business; as a resident it was every other or 2 nights on and one off. Dr Smiley’s belief was if you were going into OB this would prepare you for your future call and if you weren’t you would at least get to experience exposure to a large number of deliveries over 30 days that most rotations wouldn’t give you. Clinical situations in medicine are much more likely to be retained if one is frequently exposed to them.
This environment produced unbelievable stress and to relieve it we left the hospital and headed to our favorite watering hole to drink, dance and party until it was time to go back on call sometimes without ever going home. So no wonder so many marriages did not survive the “G’s” seduction.
There are probably bars now closed in St. Louis and East St. Louis that have our names etched on their walls as a testament to our faithful attendance. St. Louis closed down at midnight but East St. Louis stayed open 24/7 and we would head there to keep on drinking at places like the “Faust Club” the “Blue Note” and the “Manhattan” where Ray Charles, Tiny Grimes, Ike and Tina Turner played all night long. And then go to Lovejoy, Brooklyn or Madison, IL to gamble what little money we had left.
Many a night I have searched the city for the “pig ear or pig snoot man” to eat and sober up before going back for another call at the “G’s” Then do it all over again.
I was indeed a willing victim to the seduction of the jealous mistress called medicine. And remember there were nurses every where we turned who were good to go and we took them on the ride. Relationships came and went as residents came and left and affairs ended some marriages and others survived.
There are tales of escapades that I dare not tell, but here’s one so good that I must relate it.
One of my fellow resident’s and friend (who will remain name less) asked to borrow my car while I was doing an emergency room call from 7pm to 7am one night. I had a black ’57 Ford convertible with Indiana license plates ( very distinctive). His date happened to a married woman.
Now the ER had a police scanner that monitored police action through out the city and about 1am I heard a flurry of calls reporting that a car described like mine was fleeing at a high rate of speed, running stop lights headed East, the car had avoided two roadblocks to apprehend it and could not be located.
About 3am he came in out of breath and handed me my keys. I said did he know the police were chasing him? Yeah, but didn’t know what for. He said that he had pulled in front of the woman’s house and parked to talk a while and a suspicious car pulled behind him. He pulled off and circled the block twice and dropped her off and sped away thinking it was her husband. It turned out to be an unmarked police car. And the chase began. I asked how he had avoided the police, he said he didn’t think they were after him and had cut through a side street and hid in a driveway. For weeks afterwards, I was careful to avoid any police cruiser I saw! Naturally I never revealed the incident to my wife hoping she would not be stopped.
Going to St. Louis
Going to St. Louis
Commencement was the 1st week in June and Internship was to begin July 1. My wife had worked for a Savings and Loan Co. and her boss allowed me to take over payments on one of their cars,
a repossessed 1957 Black Ford convertible, the payment being $35 a month ?forever, as a graduation gift. I had rented an open U-haul trailer, the kind with a tarp, to move our possessions. I planned to stop over in Evansville to rest a few days and pick up a few furnishings from my mother. The trip was made in a down pour and the tarp leaked, soaking 2 boxes of my medical books. I was able to salvage most by drying them in the oven and separating the pages with a knife, but a few were unsalvageable. I left for St. Louis the last of June. The route was a winding two lane highway through southern Illinois. Naturally, I was not adhering to the 55 mile an hour speed limit recommended for pulling a trailer, actually going about 70 while rounding a curve I saw something passing on my right and said “some son of a bitch is trying to pass me on the shoulder”. All of a sudden I saw the trailer, it had broken loose with all our belongings, ending up in a corn field. I drove into the field and checked and saw the hitch had popped loose and I would need a hammer that I didn’t have to pound it in place. So I scrounged around and found a big iron skillet which worked just as well. The safety chains had snapped so I wrapped them around the bumper and proceed the next 100 miles at 30 miles an hour.
A former classmate who was now a resident at the Homer G. Phillips Hospital had arranged housing for me at the hospital. unfortunately it was just for me, he didn’t expect my wife to be coming. So I had to find some kind of accommodations for us and she was 6 months pregnant. I called my Aunt Dot and she had a friend who kindly allowed us to stay at her house and park the trailer in her garage while I luckily found a lady who would rent us a room at $35/month, by the way my salary was $70/mo. This all transpired between Friday June 28th and Tuesday July 1st.
On July 1st we got up early so we could have breakfast together before she dropped me off at the “G’s” so she could have the car. We went to the Howard Johnson’s restaurant at Natural Bridge and Kingshighway and were denied service because of race. My wife at 6 months pregnant was so stressed she vomited all over the floor and we exited to their castigation. It was 7 AM Tuesday morning when she dropped me off at the hospital. My internship awaited me and I was tired, hungry and mad.
The intern class was one of the largest the hospital had ever recruited. I was the only intern that wasn’t from Meharry or Howard so the only people I knew were several IU grads that had preceded me. We sat in the auditorium and chose our first rotation and the Chief residents sat in the back and assessed us like cattle, picking this one and that for their teams I selected surgery as my first rotation and a Chief named Mays Maxwell picked me because his 3rd year was an IU grad. This was probably the most fortunate thing that could of happened to me based on my experience with him. Mays was a swarthy short stocky guy with slicked back hair and wore his shirt open exhibiting a hairy chest and a gold chain with a miraculous medal around his neck. He had a short man’s complex and to him being Chief was the ultimate achievement. As soon as we were out of the meeting he gathered his team of five in his car and we went to Angelica’s uniform store so he could get fitted for his long white chief coats, which had to be hemmed so they wouldn’t drag on the floor. He than proceeded to purchase six. I watched in bemusement little knowing that this little Napoleon would teach me more surgery in 3 months than I could have ever imagined.
I finished my day of orientation and went home glad to be on my way to being a real doctor. I was reminded that we had to round at 6 AM and we would be on call the Fourth of July weekend which started Friday. My internship had begun.
Commencement was the 1st week in June and Internship was to begin July 1. My wife had worked for a Savings and Loan Co. and her boss allowed me to take over payments on one of their cars,
a repossessed 1957 Black Ford convertible, the payment being $35 a month ?forever, as a graduation gift. I had rented an open U-haul trailer, the kind with a tarp, to move our possessions. I planned to stop over in Evansville to rest a few days and pick up a few furnishings from my mother. The trip was made in a down pour and the tarp leaked, soaking 2 boxes of my medical books. I was able to salvage most by drying them in the oven and separating the pages with a knife, but a few were unsalvageable. I left for St. Louis the last of June. The route was a winding two lane highway through southern Illinois. Naturally, I was not adhering to the 55 mile an hour speed limit recommended for pulling a trailer, actually going about 70 while rounding a curve I saw something passing on my right and said “some son of a bitch is trying to pass me on the shoulder”. All of a sudden I saw the trailer, it had broken loose with all our belongings, ending up in a corn field. I drove into the field and checked and saw the hitch had popped loose and I would need a hammer that I didn’t have to pound it in place. So I scrounged around and found a big iron skillet which worked just as well. The safety chains had snapped so I wrapped them around the bumper and proceed the next 100 miles at 30 miles an hour.
A former classmate who was now a resident at the Homer G. Phillips Hospital had arranged housing for me at the hospital. unfortunately it was just for me, he didn’t expect my wife to be coming. So I had to find some kind of accommodations for us and she was 6 months pregnant. I called my Aunt Dot and she had a friend who kindly allowed us to stay at her house and park the trailer in her garage while I luckily found a lady who would rent us a room at $35/month, by the way my salary was $70/mo. This all transpired between Friday June 28th and Tuesday July 1st.
On July 1st we got up early so we could have breakfast together before she dropped me off at the “G’s” so she could have the car. We went to the Howard Johnson’s restaurant at Natural Bridge and Kingshighway and were denied service because of race. My wife at 6 months pregnant was so stressed she vomited all over the floor and we exited to their castigation. It was 7 AM Tuesday morning when she dropped me off at the hospital. My internship awaited me and I was tired, hungry and mad.
The intern class was one of the largest the hospital had ever recruited. I was the only intern that wasn’t from Meharry or Howard so the only people I knew were several IU grads that had preceded me. We sat in the auditorium and chose our first rotation and the Chief residents sat in the back and assessed us like cattle, picking this one and that for their teams I selected surgery as my first rotation and a Chief named Mays Maxwell picked me because his 3rd year was an IU grad. This was probably the most fortunate thing that could of happened to me based on my experience with him. Mays was a swarthy short stocky guy with slicked back hair and wore his shirt open exhibiting a hairy chest and a gold chain with a miraculous medal around his neck. He had a short man’s complex and to him being Chief was the ultimate achievement. As soon as we were out of the meeting he gathered his team of five in his car and we went to Angelica’s uniform store so he could get fitted for his long white chief coats, which had to be hemmed so they wouldn’t drag on the floor. He than proceeded to purchase six. I watched in bemusement little knowing that this little Napoleon would teach me more surgery in 3 months than I could have ever imagined.
I finished my day of orientation and went home glad to be on my way to being a real doctor. I was reminded that we had to round at 6 AM and we would be on call the Fourth of July weekend which started Friday. My internship had begun.
Medicine in the 20th Century
Medicine in America in the 20th Century
Black American’s had very little expectations for good medical care following slavery, white physicians were reluctant to care for them, hospitals segregated them. The only schools that trained Black physicians were Meharry and Howard and maybe a single student was admitted to a few white schools.
Those Blacks that completed medical school had little chance to become specialist because there were no places to train.
There were several hospitals that became training centers in the 1930’s they included Harlem, Hubbard, Howard, Providence and Homer G. Phillips. Those physicians that specialized usually remained in these institution where they trained to continue mentoring those who followed. Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis became the leading institution of such training. A noted white surgeon, Dr Robert Elman the Chairmen of the Surgery Dept at Washington University, became the first chief of surgery at Homer G. in 1937 followed later by Dr Carl Moyer.
There are dozens of anecdotal stories that have passed down about the technical ability and brilliance of these pioneer physicians; often drawing reluctant admiration from white physicians.
One such story is much too good to forget.
There was a Black pharmacist in Monroe, La, Dr Pierce, who wrote to Dr William Sinkler the Medical Director of Homer G. Phillips asking him if he would come to Monroe and do some much needed surgery on some of the Blacks in that community. The white physicians refusing them care. He had arranged for a half dozen patients to be operated on at St Frances Hospital. Dr Sinkler agreed to go and took Dr A.Vaughn a well respected colleague in St.Louis. The scrub nurses of the local surgeons refused to assist the visitors. One prominent surgeon offered his personal nurse to scrub for them.
When they arrived they were made to change clothes in the janitors closet. And once in the operating room they were surrounded by hostile physicians eager to watch these coloreds operate.
The first patient was a woman that needed a Cholecystectomy and a Hysterectomy both operations being performed under a spinal anesthesia, which limited their margin of operating time.
As the operation proceeded the gall bladder was quickly removed and moving in concert and at almost blinding speed they attacked the uterus. The gallery as well as the room was packed with doctors.
All of a sudden one observer couldn’t contain himself any longer and was heard to shout “look at them little niggahs go!”
Another treasured story is about Dr. Matthew Walker, the Chairmen of the Dept of Surgery at Meharry. He was to take the practical exam for his Surgical Boards and was told by his preceptor to report in an operating room at 8 AM. The professor was running late and when he walked in the room at 8:15 Dr Walker was closing the wound. The preceptor exclaimed. “I see you’re closing, had a little problem?” Dr Walker asked the nurse to hand the specimen pan to the speechless preceptor so he could see the pathology.
There is no doubt that these were the giants that set examples for those of us who followed in their footsteps.
Black American’s had very little expectations for good medical care following slavery, white physicians were reluctant to care for them, hospitals segregated them. The only schools that trained Black physicians were Meharry and Howard and maybe a single student was admitted to a few white schools.
Those Blacks that completed medical school had little chance to become specialist because there were no places to train.
There were several hospitals that became training centers in the 1930’s they included Harlem, Hubbard, Howard, Providence and Homer G. Phillips. Those physicians that specialized usually remained in these institution where they trained to continue mentoring those who followed. Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis became the leading institution of such training. A noted white surgeon, Dr Robert Elman the Chairmen of the Surgery Dept at Washington University, became the first chief of surgery at Homer G. in 1937 followed later by Dr Carl Moyer.
There are dozens of anecdotal stories that have passed down about the technical ability and brilliance of these pioneer physicians; often drawing reluctant admiration from white physicians.
One such story is much too good to forget.
There was a Black pharmacist in Monroe, La, Dr Pierce, who wrote to Dr William Sinkler the Medical Director of Homer G. Phillips asking him if he would come to Monroe and do some much needed surgery on some of the Blacks in that community. The white physicians refusing them care. He had arranged for a half dozen patients to be operated on at St Frances Hospital. Dr Sinkler agreed to go and took Dr A.Vaughn a well respected colleague in St.Louis. The scrub nurses of the local surgeons refused to assist the visitors. One prominent surgeon offered his personal nurse to scrub for them.
When they arrived they were made to change clothes in the janitors closet. And once in the operating room they were surrounded by hostile physicians eager to watch these coloreds operate.
The first patient was a woman that needed a Cholecystectomy and a Hysterectomy both operations being performed under a spinal anesthesia, which limited their margin of operating time.
As the operation proceeded the gall bladder was quickly removed and moving in concert and at almost blinding speed they attacked the uterus. The gallery as well as the room was packed with doctors.
All of a sudden one observer couldn’t contain himself any longer and was heard to shout “look at them little niggahs go!”
Another treasured story is about Dr. Matthew Walker, the Chairmen of the Dept of Surgery at Meharry. He was to take the practical exam for his Surgical Boards and was told by his preceptor to report in an operating room at 8 AM. The professor was running late and when he walked in the room at 8:15 Dr Walker was closing the wound. The preceptor exclaimed. “I see you’re closing, had a little problem?” Dr Walker asked the nurse to hand the specimen pan to the speechless preceptor so he could see the pathology.
There is no doubt that these were the giants that set examples for those of us who followed in their footsteps.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Medical School 4th year (Final year)
Before I get into the story of my final travail in Medical school, I should relate some facts. All of the hospitals in Indianapolis were segregated. Methodist hospital put Black patients in the basement and General and St Vincent’s had a special floor. On the clinical services, some of the patients didn’t want the Black students to examine them and many of the attending did not insist. This diluted our exposure to certain diseases they may have had. The white students could get clerkships at the private hospitals where they were paid to extern, we could not. There was and still is a lot of bitterness I harbor to this day about IU School of Medicine. Those of us who graduated only owe them the opportunity to be doctors but as far as encouragement and help (i.e. Drs. Drew, Test, Meeks and a few others ) there was little from others. I have never received any inquiry as to what any of us eventually became and many became outstanding in their contributions to medicine.
Dr Frank Lloyd, who became my mentor in OB/Gyn was not permitted to work at Coleman Maternity Hospital because they had a closed staff, even though he was board certified and most of their attendings were not but fortunately he was given special permission to deliver the daughter of a fellow Black student’s wife. As I look back, medical school was tough and was sometime unfair and cruel for everyone but the discrimination affected our perspective and added unnecessary anxiety to our lives. And I cannot forgive them for that!
The final year was one of electives and my first rotation was psychiatry at the VA. This was a great service and a new Chairman, Dr Nurenberger gave the students a lot of clinical freedom. But after the incident I’m going to relate he had to rethink that. A student interviewed a patient and not being experienced left the patient agitated. A little later a staff psychiatrist came by to see the patient, who was hiding behind the door and struck him in the head with a chair causing a skull fracture. You can imagine after that the staff was very cautious.
Also we were given the responsibility as duty officer while on call, allowing us to admit patients at night. It can be awful scary to be called to a locked unit and walk down a row of cell like rooms with deranged vets staring out to give a sedative to a combative patient with only an orderly present.
The most bizarre thing that I had happen was when I was in charge of a group that was being evaluated for discharge. The physical therapist and I had taken them to the YMCA for interaction and sports by playing some volleyball. On our return, I had to write a summary as to how one of my patient did so he could be released. I had gone to a desk off in a corner of the unit to write that the patient was interacting socially and indeed I felt the patient could be dismissed. When suddenly there was a commotion on the terrace next to the unit. My patient had climbed the barrier and jumped 8 floors to his death.
I immediately tore up my report and stated in rounds the next day that I hadn’t had a chance to write anything before he jumped. That incident ended any thought of my considering psychiatry as a specialty.
My next rotation was on OB and it was at the Coleman the university service. Practically all of the patients were white and the few Blacks in labor didn’t want me taking care of them. Unlike General Hospital you didn’t get to do anything, basically not even watch a delivery, since you were essentially violating a white women’s privacy. I learned a lot about how not to take care of a patient. Fortunately, the final exam was not bias and I scored 100. I think that convinced me to lean toward OB as a career. I also had considered general surgery but felt that in OB I could know as much as anyone in the world but in surgery the field was so vast I would never be able to master it. And later I was right, because years later surgery became fragmented into many subspecialties. I had not made up my mind about where I would intern and went home to Evansville one week. My dad had privileges to do certain minor operations and he had an emergency appendectomy one night that he took me with him to scrub on. He let me do the operation and was really impressed with my skill. Later he suggested that I apply at St. Mary’s Hospital for one of the 2 intern spots. Now he had been a respected physician there for 20 years even served as a committee chairman. They indicated that I would indeed be considered so I planned on going home to serve my internship. As it turned out at the last minute they reneged on their offer. And that was probably the best thing that could have happened. My dad called Dr. William Sinkler, Director of Homer G. Phillips Hospital St. Louis, one of his classmates and he immediately accepted me with the recrimination that I went to the “white folks” and I needed him now but I didn’t care I was gladly ready to bail on the white medical world.
A personal event happened that left an indelible imprint on how I would treat fellow doctors and students in the future. My wife got pregnant early in the 4th year and was going to Dr Lloyd, she ended up having a miscarriage which I hadn’t diagnosed and needed a D& C. Dr Lloyd never taught by telling you an answer he would make you deductively figure it out, something I adopted in my teaching over the years. Any way when the insurance check came ( $50) and I took it to him for payment, he signed it and handed it back saying you need this more than I do. I never forgot that act of largesse for me as a student and I have never charged a student or a fellow physician for my services until the government made it insurance fraud to give free service to a select group.
One last thing happened in the 3rd quarter, I was still working in the Neuropsychiatic Institute and a group foreign physicians were touring. Their host and guide was Dr S from my pathology days.
He greeted me warmly and put his arm around me and described me as one his best students and how he was proud of how I had put together this lab and what an important study I was doing. (Such bull! )
All that I had left was to pass the finals and get out of Indianapolis
.
There was an senior tradition that when the finals were posted with the “all clear” the whole class marched down Michigan St. to the Gaiety Burlesque Theater for the matinee in our white lab coats and drank at the adjoining bar until the show started. We than took up the first rows of the theater displacing the (perverts ) and awaited the star “La Rose la Rose” a nationally known stripper. At the finale’ of her act the class president had the honor of presenting her with a bouquet of roses burying his head in her ample breast amid our hoots and hollers. This we did with great gusto and later I heard that the Dean forbade future classes from this yearly rite of passage.
The only thing left was graduation which took place on the Bloomington campus and included undergraduate and graduate schools. The ceremony was to be held outdoors in the football stadium and if it rained it would be in the field house and 4 tickets would be allotted. To my never ending disappointment all my family couldn’t witness the ceremony.
When the ceremony was over I left with my tassel and diploma (with all the rights and privileges there to apportaining ) and never looked back with any fondness for IU. Finis!
Dr Frank Lloyd, who became my mentor in OB/Gyn was not permitted to work at Coleman Maternity Hospital because they had a closed staff, even though he was board certified and most of their attendings were not but fortunately he was given special permission to deliver the daughter of a fellow Black student’s wife. As I look back, medical school was tough and was sometime unfair and cruel for everyone but the discrimination affected our perspective and added unnecessary anxiety to our lives. And I cannot forgive them for that!
The final year was one of electives and my first rotation was psychiatry at the VA. This was a great service and a new Chairman, Dr Nurenberger gave the students a lot of clinical freedom. But after the incident I’m going to relate he had to rethink that. A student interviewed a patient and not being experienced left the patient agitated. A little later a staff psychiatrist came by to see the patient, who was hiding behind the door and struck him in the head with a chair causing a skull fracture. You can imagine after that the staff was very cautious.
Also we were given the responsibility as duty officer while on call, allowing us to admit patients at night. It can be awful scary to be called to a locked unit and walk down a row of cell like rooms with deranged vets staring out to give a sedative to a combative patient with only an orderly present.
The most bizarre thing that I had happen was when I was in charge of a group that was being evaluated for discharge. The physical therapist and I had taken them to the YMCA for interaction and sports by playing some volleyball. On our return, I had to write a summary as to how one of my patient did so he could be released. I had gone to a desk off in a corner of the unit to write that the patient was interacting socially and indeed I felt the patient could be dismissed. When suddenly there was a commotion on the terrace next to the unit. My patient had climbed the barrier and jumped 8 floors to his death.
I immediately tore up my report and stated in rounds the next day that I hadn’t had a chance to write anything before he jumped. That incident ended any thought of my considering psychiatry as a specialty.
My next rotation was on OB and it was at the Coleman the university service. Practically all of the patients were white and the few Blacks in labor didn’t want me taking care of them. Unlike General Hospital you didn’t get to do anything, basically not even watch a delivery, since you were essentially violating a white women’s privacy. I learned a lot about how not to take care of a patient. Fortunately, the final exam was not bias and I scored 100. I think that convinced me to lean toward OB as a career. I also had considered general surgery but felt that in OB I could know as much as anyone in the world but in surgery the field was so vast I would never be able to master it. And later I was right, because years later surgery became fragmented into many subspecialties. I had not made up my mind about where I would intern and went home to Evansville one week. My dad had privileges to do certain minor operations and he had an emergency appendectomy one night that he took me with him to scrub on. He let me do the operation and was really impressed with my skill. Later he suggested that I apply at St. Mary’s Hospital for one of the 2 intern spots. Now he had been a respected physician there for 20 years even served as a committee chairman. They indicated that I would indeed be considered so I planned on going home to serve my internship. As it turned out at the last minute they reneged on their offer. And that was probably the best thing that could have happened. My dad called Dr. William Sinkler, Director of Homer G. Phillips Hospital St. Louis, one of his classmates and he immediately accepted me with the recrimination that I went to the “white folks” and I needed him now but I didn’t care I was gladly ready to bail on the white medical world.
A personal event happened that left an indelible imprint on how I would treat fellow doctors and students in the future. My wife got pregnant early in the 4th year and was going to Dr Lloyd, she ended up having a miscarriage which I hadn’t diagnosed and needed a D& C. Dr Lloyd never taught by telling you an answer he would make you deductively figure it out, something I adopted in my teaching over the years. Any way when the insurance check came ( $50) and I took it to him for payment, he signed it and handed it back saying you need this more than I do. I never forgot that act of largesse for me as a student and I have never charged a student or a fellow physician for my services until the government made it insurance fraud to give free service to a select group.
One last thing happened in the 3rd quarter, I was still working in the Neuropsychiatic Institute and a group foreign physicians were touring. Their host and guide was Dr S from my pathology days.
He greeted me warmly and put his arm around me and described me as one his best students and how he was proud of how I had put together this lab and what an important study I was doing. (Such bull! )
All that I had left was to pass the finals and get out of Indianapolis
.
There was an senior tradition that when the finals were posted with the “all clear” the whole class marched down Michigan St. to the Gaiety Burlesque Theater for the matinee in our white lab coats and drank at the adjoining bar until the show started. We than took up the first rows of the theater displacing the (perverts ) and awaited the star “La Rose la Rose” a nationally known stripper. At the finale’ of her act the class president had the honor of presenting her with a bouquet of roses burying his head in her ample breast amid our hoots and hollers. This we did with great gusto and later I heard that the Dean forbade future classes from this yearly rite of passage.
The only thing left was graduation which took place on the Bloomington campus and included undergraduate and graduate schools. The ceremony was to be held outdoors in the football stadium and if it rained it would be in the field house and 4 tickets would be allotted. To my never ending disappointment all my family couldn’t witness the ceremony.
When the ceremony was over I left with my tassel and diploma (with all the rights and privileges there to apportaining ) and never looked back with any fondness for IU. Finis!
Medical School 3rd year (Clinical) year)
I was excited about starting my clinical rotations but having to take a parasitology course with 2nd year students was really a slap in the face especially since I had made an “A” in it at Michigan in summer school.
My first quarter rotation was pediatrics and the Chairmen at Riley Hospital was Dr Meeks a real gentleman physician. During our introduction to his course he stated that no child would be referred to by race or ethnicity when the history was given. You were to say this 5 year old girl presented with leg pain, not this 5 year old colored girl; emphasizing the diagnosis would evolve by symptoms ( i.e. Sickle Cell Anemia or Tay Sachs ) not by their heritage. And that put him in a special class of physicians that I have never forgotten and I tried to emulate during my career. There certainly were others who treated patients with disrespect and callousness that I never respected no matter what their professional statue.
Riley Hospital was the IU pediatric hospital and it provided us with a vast amount of clinical diseases; many common and many rare. Polio was an awful disease that when diagnosed completely devastated a family. In fact a couple of medical students contracted it during my 4 years. The polio ward at Riley held about 30 iron lungs that required 24/7 attention mostly by medical students. There was an adult unit at Long the University hospital that held an equal number of polio patients. We students did the tracheal toilets and debridement of the bed sores and a few of us worked as special nurses 11-7 for pay. I’ll never forget a fellow student that was married and got polio in his junior year and I specialed him. He was so depressed that he would curse his wife who sat with him every night. One night I was so angry at him for treating her so badly I told him I would pull the plug on his iron lung. But I could really empathize with him after my bout with TB.
The year was 1956 and the Salk vaccine was released and all students were inoculated as well as the adolescent population of the country and in one year new polio admissions were practically eliminated. The adult ward was closed and the children’s unit was pretty much moth balled. Polio was a disease I saw destined for extinction during my medical school stay.
One of the things that IU was noted for was the clinical exposure the students received on their rotations and pediatrics was a classic example. We were allowed to draw blood and give infusions on infants and children. This included scalp vein, femoral and jugular punctures as well as cut downs. All of these techniques were not commonly learned at other medical schools and held us in as a desired recruit for internship nationally. One of the positive skills I can attribute to my training at IU. Also on my pediatric neurosurgery rotation, a Chief resident allow me to insert a Holter Valve ( a tube that drains the ventricle of the brain thru the neck in to the abdomen) into a hydrocephalic patient which was an awesome experience at the time and still is!
I liked Pediatrics but wasn’t sure I could deal with non verbal patients on a regular basis. I had more clinical services to come and time decide what I wanted to do as a specialty if I chose one.
My next service was Internal Medicine which I found overwhelming because you are dealing with the entire body and putting together a diagnosis requires an inexhaustible knowledge base. But I liked the challenge of putting the parts of the puzzle together to come up with the disease. Most of the things at a medical school are referred in because they represent difficult problems that aren’t easily diagnosed so none of the problems were easy. We had some exceptional clinicians and three hospitals, IU, General (now Wishard ), and the VA for our patient population. I can say I learned a lot and I sure it made me a well rounded doctor in the end.
The Surgery rotation started out on a bad note because it was known that the Chairman of the department had stated that Blacks did not have what it took to be a surgeon and had refused to accept a friend who had interned at General Hospital for that reason.
Guess whose service I ended up on for my surgical rotation? Dr S, the character, who had used the derogatory term “ Kingfish “ the year before to Black classmate.
Now Dr S was a short pretentious man with a tremendous ego, as do most surgeons, who affected the syrupy southern drawl of his Mississippi birth place. And he was always relating “ when aw was at the Hopkins” (Johns Hopkins Med School) I did this and did that ad nauseaum.
Granted he was an excellent surgeon from a knowledge base but he tended to get frustrated and lose it at critical times. And later in my training in residency I worked with some surgeons who could operate rings around him.
He had a habit of calling on the Lord in tense situations saying things like “ Lawd have mercy can somebody stop this bleeding” or “ Lawd get this stupid SOB out of my operating room”. One time during an especially difficult case he asked the nurse to lay a sterile sheet on the operating room floor and said “ Aw needs to rest” he then laid down with arms out stretched like Christ on the cross and asked “ would some body please bring me a cold Coke Cola”. The nurse hurried in with one and pulling aside his mask poured it in his mouth. He exclaimed “Aw feel so refreshed” and resumed operating. That scene and statement could have been made into a commercial spot for Coke on TV today.
A favorite incidence occurred during a major case in which he was removing a huge abdominal tumor. The operating room was filled with observers as was the gallery above. He requested that the assistants at the table feel this unusual mass which he described in detail “Aw wants everybody to palpate this because you may never get to see or feel anythin like this” the table was ringed by a dozen or so student and residents and suddenly a bare hand reached into the field, felt the tumor carefully and withdrew. He almost fainted and to this day no one knew where the hand came from. Probably by someone near the table, who got carried away by his histrionics?
My best rotation in the 3rd year was OB/GYN at General Hospital. The two Chief residents were laid back guys and if you were willing to work they would let you do anything. Not like the University rotation where all the student did was count contractions and feel their intensity and then call the nurse.
About a week into my rotation I got to see my first C-section. It was done by the department Chief of OB at General. The operation was fascinating to me, how they could open up the uterus and removed the baby and sew everything back. It took about 3 hrs to complete and I was really impressed. About a week or so later, I was on call and a Black OB/GYN did a C-section and it took him roughly 30 min. I didn’t have any frame of reference to compare the operations or the surgeons but I said one of these guys did something and it could have been wrong. I don’t know what, but if I ever go into OB I’m going to be like the 30min guy. And the 30 min guy was named Frank Lloyd who became my mentor and set me on the path to a career in OB/GYN.
One other rotation had a challenging influence on my life and career. The rotation was Neurology and the Head of the Dept was Dr Lester Drew. He was also consultant for the State Hospital for the Mentally Disabled at Muskatatuck, IN. We were in a rotation of 5 students and we went with him to see patients and on the way back he inquired did any of us know any chemistry. One of my friends John spoke up and said Robbie is real good in chem.. Drew asked me to drop by his office when I had time.
The visit expanded to an offer to be a student research assistant for a lab he was setting up in the newly constructed Institute for Neuro-psychiatric Research.
He needed me to set up a lab from scratch to do research on a project he wanted done….. a test to detect serum copper levels in a micro technique. The disease he wanted to detect was called Wilson’s Disease and it produced both neurological and psychiatric deficits in patients.
He would be gone to Japan for a year as a member of a team that was to examine the after effects on people from radiation of the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
My job would consist of buying, equipping, and setting up the lab and developing a technique to do micro detection of serum copper. I would work full time in my off quarter and part time during the rest of the year that was left. The interesting thing was he gave me the authority to sign purchase orders which pissed off some official in the University, since some of the equipment was 10-15 thousand dollars and I was ordering it. There was a PHD candidate that was over the whole lab that was advising me and we were cool, years later he became a professor of chem at Ohio State and sent his wife to me for OB care.
I immediately got down to business and got the lab up and running and even wrote up the protocol for the test to be published but I graduated and lost interest and the test was developed at another school.
Dr Drew was really my rabbi and offered a residency in pediatric neurology but I declined. I told him where could a Black pediatric neurologist make a living, he said New York City where he had trained but my sights were now setting on OB/GYN.
I now had one more year to go and couldn’t wait to start..
My first quarter rotation was pediatrics and the Chairmen at Riley Hospital was Dr Meeks a real gentleman physician. During our introduction to his course he stated that no child would be referred to by race or ethnicity when the history was given. You were to say this 5 year old girl presented with leg pain, not this 5 year old colored girl; emphasizing the diagnosis would evolve by symptoms ( i.e. Sickle Cell Anemia or Tay Sachs ) not by their heritage. And that put him in a special class of physicians that I have never forgotten and I tried to emulate during my career. There certainly were others who treated patients with disrespect and callousness that I never respected no matter what their professional statue.
Riley Hospital was the IU pediatric hospital and it provided us with a vast amount of clinical diseases; many common and many rare. Polio was an awful disease that when diagnosed completely devastated a family. In fact a couple of medical students contracted it during my 4 years. The polio ward at Riley held about 30 iron lungs that required 24/7 attention mostly by medical students. There was an adult unit at Long the University hospital that held an equal number of polio patients. We students did the tracheal toilets and debridement of the bed sores and a few of us worked as special nurses 11-7 for pay. I’ll never forget a fellow student that was married and got polio in his junior year and I specialed him. He was so depressed that he would curse his wife who sat with him every night. One night I was so angry at him for treating her so badly I told him I would pull the plug on his iron lung. But I could really empathize with him after my bout with TB.
The year was 1956 and the Salk vaccine was released and all students were inoculated as well as the adolescent population of the country and in one year new polio admissions were practically eliminated. The adult ward was closed and the children’s unit was pretty much moth balled. Polio was a disease I saw destined for extinction during my medical school stay.
One of the things that IU was noted for was the clinical exposure the students received on their rotations and pediatrics was a classic example. We were allowed to draw blood and give infusions on infants and children. This included scalp vein, femoral and jugular punctures as well as cut downs. All of these techniques were not commonly learned at other medical schools and held us in as a desired recruit for internship nationally. One of the positive skills I can attribute to my training at IU. Also on my pediatric neurosurgery rotation, a Chief resident allow me to insert a Holter Valve ( a tube that drains the ventricle of the brain thru the neck in to the abdomen) into a hydrocephalic patient which was an awesome experience at the time and still is!
I liked Pediatrics but wasn’t sure I could deal with non verbal patients on a regular basis. I had more clinical services to come and time decide what I wanted to do as a specialty if I chose one.
My next service was Internal Medicine which I found overwhelming because you are dealing with the entire body and putting together a diagnosis requires an inexhaustible knowledge base. But I liked the challenge of putting the parts of the puzzle together to come up with the disease. Most of the things at a medical school are referred in because they represent difficult problems that aren’t easily diagnosed so none of the problems were easy. We had some exceptional clinicians and three hospitals, IU, General (now Wishard ), and the VA for our patient population. I can say I learned a lot and I sure it made me a well rounded doctor in the end.
The Surgery rotation started out on a bad note because it was known that the Chairman of the department had stated that Blacks did not have what it took to be a surgeon and had refused to accept a friend who had interned at General Hospital for that reason.
Guess whose service I ended up on for my surgical rotation? Dr S, the character, who had used the derogatory term “ Kingfish “ the year before to Black classmate.
Now Dr S was a short pretentious man with a tremendous ego, as do most surgeons, who affected the syrupy southern drawl of his Mississippi birth place. And he was always relating “ when aw was at the Hopkins” (Johns Hopkins Med School) I did this and did that ad nauseaum.
Granted he was an excellent surgeon from a knowledge base but he tended to get frustrated and lose it at critical times. And later in my training in residency I worked with some surgeons who could operate rings around him.
He had a habit of calling on the Lord in tense situations saying things like “ Lawd have mercy can somebody stop this bleeding” or “ Lawd get this stupid SOB out of my operating room”. One time during an especially difficult case he asked the nurse to lay a sterile sheet on the operating room floor and said “ Aw needs to rest” he then laid down with arms out stretched like Christ on the cross and asked “ would some body please bring me a cold Coke Cola”. The nurse hurried in with one and pulling aside his mask poured it in his mouth. He exclaimed “Aw feel so refreshed” and resumed operating. That scene and statement could have been made into a commercial spot for Coke on TV today.
A favorite incidence occurred during a major case in which he was removing a huge abdominal tumor. The operating room was filled with observers as was the gallery above. He requested that the assistants at the table feel this unusual mass which he described in detail “Aw wants everybody to palpate this because you may never get to see or feel anythin like this” the table was ringed by a dozen or so student and residents and suddenly a bare hand reached into the field, felt the tumor carefully and withdrew. He almost fainted and to this day no one knew where the hand came from. Probably by someone near the table, who got carried away by his histrionics?
My best rotation in the 3rd year was OB/GYN at General Hospital. The two Chief residents were laid back guys and if you were willing to work they would let you do anything. Not like the University rotation where all the student did was count contractions and feel their intensity and then call the nurse.
About a week into my rotation I got to see my first C-section. It was done by the department Chief of OB at General. The operation was fascinating to me, how they could open up the uterus and removed the baby and sew everything back. It took about 3 hrs to complete and I was really impressed. About a week or so later, I was on call and a Black OB/GYN did a C-section and it took him roughly 30 min. I didn’t have any frame of reference to compare the operations or the surgeons but I said one of these guys did something and it could have been wrong. I don’t know what, but if I ever go into OB I’m going to be like the 30min guy. And the 30 min guy was named Frank Lloyd who became my mentor and set me on the path to a career in OB/GYN.
One other rotation had a challenging influence on my life and career. The rotation was Neurology and the Head of the Dept was Dr Lester Drew. He was also consultant for the State Hospital for the Mentally Disabled at Muskatatuck, IN. We were in a rotation of 5 students and we went with him to see patients and on the way back he inquired did any of us know any chemistry. One of my friends John spoke up and said Robbie is real good in chem.. Drew asked me to drop by his office when I had time.
The visit expanded to an offer to be a student research assistant for a lab he was setting up in the newly constructed Institute for Neuro-psychiatric Research.
He needed me to set up a lab from scratch to do research on a project he wanted done….. a test to detect serum copper levels in a micro technique. The disease he wanted to detect was called Wilson’s Disease and it produced both neurological and psychiatric deficits in patients.
He would be gone to Japan for a year as a member of a team that was to examine the after effects on people from radiation of the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
My job would consist of buying, equipping, and setting up the lab and developing a technique to do micro detection of serum copper. I would work full time in my off quarter and part time during the rest of the year that was left. The interesting thing was he gave me the authority to sign purchase orders which pissed off some official in the University, since some of the equipment was 10-15 thousand dollars and I was ordering it. There was a PHD candidate that was over the whole lab that was advising me and we were cool, years later he became a professor of chem at Ohio State and sent his wife to me for OB care.
I immediately got down to business and got the lab up and running and even wrote up the protocol for the test to be published but I graduated and lost interest and the test was developed at another school.
Dr Drew was really my rabbi and offered a residency in pediatric neurology but I declined. I told him where could a Black pediatric neurologist make a living, he said New York City where he had trained but my sights were now setting on OB/GYN.
I now had one more year to go and couldn’t wait to start..
Medical School 2nd year (continued)
The summer of 1955, I spent waiting to go back to school was really one of a "ce la vive" attitude, I had cheated death for a minute and had a don’t give a damn attitude. I couldn’t work so I just hung around the house eating some of my mother good cooking. I borrowed $600 dollars from my Dad and bought a 1949 Pontiac, from the proverbial little old lady, so I could have wheels for getting around IU campus because the dorms were a distance from the medical science building where classes were held. This need to drive would lead to an incident in pathology that provoked the Dept Chairman. I mentioned in an earlier chapter that there were eccentric characters teaching us. Dr S wanted any one who came late to his lecture to put on one of the horrible ties he had hung on a rack in the back of the room as some sort of identification and punishment. Now here we are all adults and I thought this rather stupid. One morning I couldn’t find a parking space and got to class late, he said “ Robinson. I see you’re late put on a tie”. Later after the formal lecture there was a 2hr lab and we were studying something I couldn’t identify under the microscope. I raised my hand to get some help and Dr S came to my station. I asked him what it was and he said if I came to class on time I would know. I said what if I didn’t. He said “I’ll take 1 point off your final grade for every tardy”. I said “what if I don’t come to class at all”. And he replied “ you’ll flunk my course”.
I went immediately to my advisor who was the Prof and Chair of Biochemistry whose class I excelled in. I told him the situation also that I had to drive because of my recent illness. He phoned Dr S right in my presence and informed him that if he flunked me he would flunk one of his prize path students tit for tat. From then on Dr S never spoke to me, but in my senior year a situation occurred that he was effusive in his praise of me, amazing how fate changes things.
The classes in the second year were pretty straight forward and we were introduced to some clinical situations in physical diagnosis. Here, I encountered several instructors that were visiting clinical professors, all white, that were fair and appeared less racist. It seemed to me that the full time faculty especially in the surgical specialties were the ones that exhibited prejudice. IU had no Blacks at any position in the medical school except janitors and housekeepers all of whom were so proud of us that we were to them like a relative. Occasionally an old (?exam ) turned up in our hands from one of them, having been found by the way, while cleaning an office.
One incident that I am reminded of was when a Black class mate was presenting the history of a patient for grand rounds and he had a very slow drawl. The case was one that was obviously acute gall bladder disease and he was making the point that the patient had ingested a fatty meal…chili. A characteristic trigger for an attack.
The Dept Chairmen interrupted him and said “Kingfish, get to the point” (referencing a character in Amos and Andy) a Black radio show. I stood up and walked out of the room hoping my colleague would do likewise, but he dropped his head and said yes sir! I wanted to kick his ass the next time I saw him, but from then on I knew I would have to fight any battle alone. I wanted to finish school but with what I had been through I wasn’t about to sell my soul for a MD degree. And later in my career as a chief resident, I had to put my principals on the line and I opted to walk rather than be disrespected as a man.
But there are some fair and honest souls like Dr Test who was a physical diagnoses instructor, who was independently wealthy and truly a gentlemen. He addressed all the Black patients as Miss, Mrs or Mr not “Auntie or Mary or Willie. He invited me along with my white classmates to his home for “BS” sessions along with dinner and drinks on several weekends. Those types of encounters with others professors were to say the least were nil and my only contact with a Black physician came later in my 3rd year rotation on OB/GYN that was to be a pivotal point in my life.
One of the lighter things that that happened in the 2nd year was living in the Quonset hut dorm with my fellow classmates. We were a mixture of different grades levels and there was one dental student, my roommate Suggs. One guy studied with such intensity, if any one made any noise he wanted to fight. The rest of us were pretty loose. We bought an old refrigerator for $25 and stocked it full with beer at $4 a case which we sold on the honor system for 50 cents that was dropped in an old coffee can. The proceeds were used for cigarettes, cold cuts and stuff for the dorm mates and also gas for me since I was the only one with a car and everyone shared it, especially Boone who likes to light his pipe and go for long late night drives to clear the cobwebs after studying. How little it took then to find pleasure. Our social interaction was nil with the white class mates but we met some city girls to date on occasion which ended in marriage for some of us later.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this. One of the students, Al Holliday, was from Gary and his dad was the first Black fire chief in Indiana. Right across from the Medical Center was Engine House 1 that was all Black. Because of the brotherhood that firemen have they let Holliday come over bringing some of us to eat with them and play pool and ping pong in their firehouse. Their hospitality was a needed relief to the hostility we faced on our side of the street and I will be forever thankful to them.
I went immediately to my advisor who was the Prof and Chair of Biochemistry whose class I excelled in. I told him the situation also that I had to drive because of my recent illness. He phoned Dr S right in my presence and informed him that if he flunked me he would flunk one of his prize path students tit for tat. From then on Dr S never spoke to me, but in my senior year a situation occurred that he was effusive in his praise of me, amazing how fate changes things.
The classes in the second year were pretty straight forward and we were introduced to some clinical situations in physical diagnosis. Here, I encountered several instructors that were visiting clinical professors, all white, that were fair and appeared less racist. It seemed to me that the full time faculty especially in the surgical specialties were the ones that exhibited prejudice. IU had no Blacks at any position in the medical school except janitors and housekeepers all of whom were so proud of us that we were to them like a relative. Occasionally an old (?exam ) turned up in our hands from one of them, having been found by the way, while cleaning an office.
One incident that I am reminded of was when a Black class mate was presenting the history of a patient for grand rounds and he had a very slow drawl. The case was one that was obviously acute gall bladder disease and he was making the point that the patient had ingested a fatty meal…chili. A characteristic trigger for an attack.
The Dept Chairmen interrupted him and said “Kingfish, get to the point” (referencing a character in Amos and Andy) a Black radio show. I stood up and walked out of the room hoping my colleague would do likewise, but he dropped his head and said yes sir! I wanted to kick his ass the next time I saw him, but from then on I knew I would have to fight any battle alone. I wanted to finish school but with what I had been through I wasn’t about to sell my soul for a MD degree. And later in my career as a chief resident, I had to put my principals on the line and I opted to walk rather than be disrespected as a man.
But there are some fair and honest souls like Dr Test who was a physical diagnoses instructor, who was independently wealthy and truly a gentlemen. He addressed all the Black patients as Miss, Mrs or Mr not “Auntie or Mary or Willie. He invited me along with my white classmates to his home for “BS” sessions along with dinner and drinks on several weekends. Those types of encounters with others professors were to say the least were nil and my only contact with a Black physician came later in my 3rd year rotation on OB/GYN that was to be a pivotal point in my life.
One of the lighter things that that happened in the 2nd year was living in the Quonset hut dorm with my fellow classmates. We were a mixture of different grades levels and there was one dental student, my roommate Suggs. One guy studied with such intensity, if any one made any noise he wanted to fight. The rest of us were pretty loose. We bought an old refrigerator for $25 and stocked it full with beer at $4 a case which we sold on the honor system for 50 cents that was dropped in an old coffee can. The proceeds were used for cigarettes, cold cuts and stuff for the dorm mates and also gas for me since I was the only one with a car and everyone shared it, especially Boone who likes to light his pipe and go for long late night drives to clear the cobwebs after studying. How little it took then to find pleasure. Our social interaction was nil with the white class mates but we met some city girls to date on occasion which ended in marriage for some of us later.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this. One of the students, Al Holliday, was from Gary and his dad was the first Black fire chief in Indiana. Right across from the Medical Center was Engine House 1 that was all Black. Because of the brotherhood that firemen have they let Holliday come over bringing some of us to eat with them and play pool and ping pong in their firehouse. Their hospitality was a needed relief to the hostility we faced on our side of the street and I will be forever thankful to them.
Summer School at University of Michigan
Having been restricted from taking a full 2nd year class load for medical reasons, I chose to take a 12 wk microbiology summer course offered at U of M in Ann Arbor. It turned out to be one the most enjoyable experiences I had in medical school
The professors were rational and graded fairly and my fellow students were friendly and we socialized freely. Ann Arbor is a beautiful college town and being in Michigan did not exhibit some of the racial prejudice that I witnessed in Bloomington and Indianapolis. The students taking the course were not all medical students some were in pharmacy or other fields and came from across the country.
The microbiology department was highly respected nationally and that made their summer session so coveted. An added bonus to the course was that the last 2 weeks were devoted to parasiteology which at IU was a whole quarter and taught by a real prick we called “Stools Headly” since he had a fixation on parasite ovum in stool samples. But my joy was dampened when I received an A for my summer work but he would not accept my grade as a substitute for his course, even though the Michigan course was recommended by the micro dept. He required that I take his class as a junior with 2nd year sophomores the coming year. If I had been able I would have gladly transferred to U of M. By the way having more asshole professors did not end with him.
Sometime a chance encounter can result in a meaningful experience. Larry one of my fellow students in the course was from Arkansas and when he found out I was from Indiana asked did I know Dr Minton. Who as a matter of fact, was the chairman of the Microbiology Dept. Dr Minton was also the son of a Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton. Besides being a microbiologist, he was a world renown Herpetologist. Larry went out to his car and brought up to the room an invention of his “ Pilstrom Snake Tongs” It looked like a pole with a hooked jaw and a squeeze handle. He asked if I would take one back to Dr Minton when I returned to IU and see if he would endorse it’s use. I said I would be happy to do that.
Over the summer Larry and I use to hang out at a student beer joint called the “Pretzel Bell” and later he showed me how to catch poisonous snakes. We would go out at night to one of the many lakes and ponds with waders and a spot light and catch water moccasins with his tongs which he sold for their venom to a herpetarium near Lansing, for a fee that he split with me. sometimes $40-$50 a night each.
When I got back to Indiana, I showed the tongs to Dr Minton who shrugged and said he only need a forked stick and quick hands to catch a snake. So I kept the tongs for years until they were lost. They were great for reaching things in remote places. I never found out if Larry ever got a patent and I never saw him again; but that was one of those unforgettable encounter in life you don’t forget.
The other unforgettable thing that summer was I got engaged and married a girl from Indianapolis in Sept just before I was to start my 3rd year….the clinical years were beginning.
My boyhood priest Monsignor Mootz married us in Holy Angels Church and we moved into a two bedroom apartment for Blacks only called Barrington Heights on the far southeast side of town.
This turned out to be kind of an upward bound housing complex that included postal worker, Army Finance Center employees and a mix of students at the reasonable rent of $45 dollars a month.
Here I met life long friends an older couple Fred and Stella, both were Army Finance Center employees. He was also jazz saxophone player from St. Louis and that was a real bond with us.
Stella could really cook and since they didn’t have any kids she would invite us over practically every weekend.
We had a lot in common and many a night we would sit up with him playing sax and me on bongos jamming away.
My old friend from Evansville, who escaped the hand grenade attack with me, Joe lived out there too and was working as a butcher at exclusive meat shop. He drove the delivery truck and many a night we all ate prime steaks he managed to secret out.
Getting back and forth from Barrington to the other side of town was a real problem. The bus service was practically nil and if your car was not working you had to hitch a ride. The complex was built adjacent to a railway yard and if they were making up trains you could be stuck at a crossing for literally hours. Many a night I fell asleep waiting for a train to pass with 200 plus cars. I lived there and survived for 2 years until I graduated.
Barrington was like an oasis far removed from the stress on the IU campus and the run down housing that existed for Blacks elsewhere in the city. And it gave all of us who lived there a sense of community spirit and friendships that followed some of us to the present day. I would venture to guess that a large number of prominent Indianapolis Black citizens got there start in Barrington.
The professors were rational and graded fairly and my fellow students were friendly and we socialized freely. Ann Arbor is a beautiful college town and being in Michigan did not exhibit some of the racial prejudice that I witnessed in Bloomington and Indianapolis. The students taking the course were not all medical students some were in pharmacy or other fields and came from across the country.
The microbiology department was highly respected nationally and that made their summer session so coveted. An added bonus to the course was that the last 2 weeks were devoted to parasiteology which at IU was a whole quarter and taught by a real prick we called “Stools Headly” since he had a fixation on parasite ovum in stool samples. But my joy was dampened when I received an A for my summer work but he would not accept my grade as a substitute for his course, even though the Michigan course was recommended by the micro dept. He required that I take his class as a junior with 2nd year sophomores the coming year. If I had been able I would have gladly transferred to U of M. By the way having more asshole professors did not end with him.
Sometime a chance encounter can result in a meaningful experience. Larry one of my fellow students in the course was from Arkansas and when he found out I was from Indiana asked did I know Dr Minton. Who as a matter of fact, was the chairman of the Microbiology Dept. Dr Minton was also the son of a Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton. Besides being a microbiologist, he was a world renown Herpetologist. Larry went out to his car and brought up to the room an invention of his “ Pilstrom Snake Tongs” It looked like a pole with a hooked jaw and a squeeze handle. He asked if I would take one back to Dr Minton when I returned to IU and see if he would endorse it’s use. I said I would be happy to do that.
Over the summer Larry and I use to hang out at a student beer joint called the “Pretzel Bell” and later he showed me how to catch poisonous snakes. We would go out at night to one of the many lakes and ponds with waders and a spot light and catch water moccasins with his tongs which he sold for their venom to a herpetarium near Lansing, for a fee that he split with me. sometimes $40-$50 a night each.
When I got back to Indiana, I showed the tongs to Dr Minton who shrugged and said he only need a forked stick and quick hands to catch a snake. So I kept the tongs for years until they were lost. They were great for reaching things in remote places. I never found out if Larry ever got a patent and I never saw him again; but that was one of those unforgettable encounter in life you don’t forget.
The other unforgettable thing that summer was I got engaged and married a girl from Indianapolis in Sept just before I was to start my 3rd year….the clinical years were beginning.
My boyhood priest Monsignor Mootz married us in Holy Angels Church and we moved into a two bedroom apartment for Blacks only called Barrington Heights on the far southeast side of town.
This turned out to be kind of an upward bound housing complex that included postal worker, Army Finance Center employees and a mix of students at the reasonable rent of $45 dollars a month.
Here I met life long friends an older couple Fred and Stella, both were Army Finance Center employees. He was also jazz saxophone player from St. Louis and that was a real bond with us.
Stella could really cook and since they didn’t have any kids she would invite us over practically every weekend.
We had a lot in common and many a night we would sit up with him playing sax and me on bongos jamming away.
My old friend from Evansville, who escaped the hand grenade attack with me, Joe lived out there too and was working as a butcher at exclusive meat shop. He drove the delivery truck and many a night we all ate prime steaks he managed to secret out.
Getting back and forth from Barrington to the other side of town was a real problem. The bus service was practically nil and if your car was not working you had to hitch a ride. The complex was built adjacent to a railway yard and if they were making up trains you could be stuck at a crossing for literally hours. Many a night I fell asleep waiting for a train to pass with 200 plus cars. I lived there and survived for 2 years until I graduated.
Barrington was like an oasis far removed from the stress on the IU campus and the run down housing that existed for Blacks elsewhere in the city. And it gave all of us who lived there a sense of community spirit and friendships that followed some of us to the present day. I would venture to guess that a large number of prominent Indianapolis Black citizens got there start in Barrington.
Medical School 2nd year
Medical School 2 (missed year)
Having passed the laboratory portion, the summer session I took in physiology was only about 8 weeks; there was a different instructor teaching it making the part I failed easier to pass. I was ready to advance to the campus in Indianapolis and since there was so little time to get any summer job, I went to Chicago to visit a friend. While there I received a call from my mother that my grandfather (Papa) had died. This was not expected and was a sad time for me since we were so close. I returned to Evansville for his funeral and got ready for the 2nd year. The courses were still basic science, the major ones being microbiology, biochemistry and pathology all 3 quarters long and a few 1 quarter things like physical diagnosis and statistics. I now was on the IUSM campus and housed in Winona Village, a group of Quonset huts converted into dorms. Eight of us Black students who lived on campus were all in one unit.
Starting the second year was hectic with registration, buying books and orientation to the Indianapolis campus.
A routine chest x-ray was required at the start of each year and around the third week of September 1954 I got a call to come in to the student health service. I will never forget that day until the day I die. Dr Jenna the director told me that I had a suspicious spot on my x-ray and needed to get some toilet articles and pajamas and report to the hospital that day. I had planned to go to Bloomington that weekend to an IU football game and see my lady friend.
That admission to the hospital marked one of the most devastating events in my life. Over the next week they did daily sputum samples and some more sophisticated x-ray images along with the usual lab work for diagnosing tuberculosis.
On Monday of the next week a group of doctors came in to see me and as they ringed my bed they said I had tuberculosis with a cavity in the upper lobe of my left lung and I would have to drop out of school. The news was so crushing that I really couldn’t process it all. I was 22yrs old and had three uncles and a cousin who all has died of TB in their 20’s and 30’s.
This was like telling someone today that they had HIV/AIDS.
The week before this I was on my way to a football game and now I’m headed to an early grave. My parents didn’t even know I was in the hospital since I had no clue to the seriousness of why I was admitted.
I had no one to talk to, no close friends to share this with and the thought of school became the least of my worries. I couldn’t stop the tears and a student nurse that was assigned to give me a back rub that night asked why and I poured out my feelings. And I remember she said maybe they can do something, every body doesn’t die. I said I doubt if I would be so lucky.
No doctors saw me for a couple of days and I still couldn’t bring myself to call my mother knowing Papa’s death was so fresh in her mind.
Early one morning the Chief of Thoracic surgery and the Chief of Cardiovascular surgery along with the Chief of Pulmonary diseases came in to see me. They said that they had examined my X-rays and that they thought that I might be a candidate for a radically new operation for treating a solitary cavity lesion………a segmental upper lobectomy., The usual treatment was collapsing the lobe either with ping pong balls or the chest by removing ribs.
I asked if this would allow me to return to school if it worked and to my prayerful hope they said yes. I said how long and they said about a year; but I would have to be isolated in a hospital and take medication and be on bed rest for 6 months before any surgery could be performed
Everything they said after that kind of flew right by me, because I was focused on getting well and back in school. I didn’t know how depressing the preparation for surgery would turn out to be.
The recovery plan was as follows; since I lived in Evansville I would be confined to a sanitarium there for 3 months and in January I would be transferred back to one in Indianapolis and 3 months later I would have surgery if all my sputum test were negative. Finally I would recover for 3 more months in Indianapolis and be released home to return to school the following September 1955.
I called my parents and a long painful ordeal began, starting with confinement in Boehne Hospital, a sanitarium in Evansville. I was segregated in a basement room along with three young Black women down the corridor. My memory of this dungeon is vivid to this day a chipped white hospital bed in the corner of a green painted room with two small windows that looked out to window wells……no view, only light could be seen. Here I would spend my days and nights with no occupational therapy, no visitors, a dimly lit ceiling light to read by and the only human contact was the nurse with meds and food and shouting down the hall to the women. The only time I was taken out of my room was for x-rays once a month and be examined by the doctor. The doctor never came down to the basement, ever! I guess if you died, they would take you upstairs to be pronounced.
One of the most memorable things that lifted my spirits was a letter I received from a very attractive young southern lady I met in Bloomington. I had written her of my illness and my despondence and she wrote me words of encouragement and sent a pin up picture, that I indeed put on the wall above my bed. My mother was so impressed with her concern for me she kept that letter in her personal papers. Some how it was lost, but I never forgot the lady, her name was Lauree a name I never forgot and over the years I tried to find out what had become of her. Recently, our paths serendipitously crossed and I reconnected with her.
My plan was to read the text books of the courses I would be taking once back in school, but the surroundings were so depressing I couldn’t concentrate and finally gave up. The only way I could pass the time was to sketch. Unfortunately, over the years I have lost all of these drawings. I wish I could analyze them now to see what I drew back then.
Just before Christmas they released me to go home and be transferred to Sunnyside TB Hospital in Indianapolis.
This hospital was in the northeastern portion of Marion county and was on a beautiful portion of wooded land. Unfortunately, I was segregated here and isolated in a private room. Having little human contact was as if I was in prison for a crime. They kept me isolated here until January of 1955 and then placed me in a unit called the pavilion where I had a large sunny window filled room over looking the woods. They had a library cart that came around weekly and I read every and any thing.
I had a nurse all of them were white who would come see me and sit and talk and provide me with much needed human contact. Sometimes her supervisor would scold her for the attention she gave me but she ignored her and kept coming by until I was transferred to another building for surgery.
My surgery was scheduled around the middle of March 1955 to be performed by two of the best thoracic surgeons at IU. One of my class mates a white friend agreed to special nurse me post op. He did the cut down for my IV and maintained my chest tubes while I was in recovery. All went well and I now was on the road to recovery that entailed 3 TB medications for the next year. The surgery was successful and I recovered completely and have had no problem with TB since.
Once I was post op, I was taken out of isolation for the first time after being in isolation for 6 months. I could have visitors now and several young women would come see me on weekends. This is how I met the woman I eventually married.
In June of 1955, I was discharge and allowed to go home to Evansville with the plan that I was to be reinstated to the 2nd year class with the provision that I could not take a full course load. I would have to take either Microbiology or Biochemistry in summer school, I chose to take Micro at University of Michigan the summer of 1956. That is another story. My spirits were gradually returning but I had a fatalistic view of life.
Wc;1560
Having passed the laboratory portion, the summer session I took in physiology was only about 8 weeks; there was a different instructor teaching it making the part I failed easier to pass. I was ready to advance to the campus in Indianapolis and since there was so little time to get any summer job, I went to Chicago to visit a friend. While there I received a call from my mother that my grandfather (Papa) had died. This was not expected and was a sad time for me since we were so close. I returned to Evansville for his funeral and got ready for the 2nd year. The courses were still basic science, the major ones being microbiology, biochemistry and pathology all 3 quarters long and a few 1 quarter things like physical diagnosis and statistics. I now was on the IUSM campus and housed in Winona Village, a group of Quonset huts converted into dorms. Eight of us Black students who lived on campus were all in one unit.
Starting the second year was hectic with registration, buying books and orientation to the Indianapolis campus.
A routine chest x-ray was required at the start of each year and around the third week of September 1954 I got a call to come in to the student health service. I will never forget that day until the day I die. Dr Jenna the director told me that I had a suspicious spot on my x-ray and needed to get some toilet articles and pajamas and report to the hospital that day. I had planned to go to Bloomington that weekend to an IU football game and see my lady friend.
That admission to the hospital marked one of the most devastating events in my life. Over the next week they did daily sputum samples and some more sophisticated x-ray images along with the usual lab work for diagnosing tuberculosis.
On Monday of the next week a group of doctors came in to see me and as they ringed my bed they said I had tuberculosis with a cavity in the upper lobe of my left lung and I would have to drop out of school. The news was so crushing that I really couldn’t process it all. I was 22yrs old and had three uncles and a cousin who all has died of TB in their 20’s and 30’s.
This was like telling someone today that they had HIV/AIDS.
The week before this I was on my way to a football game and now I’m headed to an early grave. My parents didn’t even know I was in the hospital since I had no clue to the seriousness of why I was admitted.
I had no one to talk to, no close friends to share this with and the thought of school became the least of my worries. I couldn’t stop the tears and a student nurse that was assigned to give me a back rub that night asked why and I poured out my feelings. And I remember she said maybe they can do something, every body doesn’t die. I said I doubt if I would be so lucky.
No doctors saw me for a couple of days and I still couldn’t bring myself to call my mother knowing Papa’s death was so fresh in her mind.
Early one morning the Chief of Thoracic surgery and the Chief of Cardiovascular surgery along with the Chief of Pulmonary diseases came in to see me. They said that they had examined my X-rays and that they thought that I might be a candidate for a radically new operation for treating a solitary cavity lesion………a segmental upper lobectomy., The usual treatment was collapsing the lobe either with ping pong balls or the chest by removing ribs.
I asked if this would allow me to return to school if it worked and to my prayerful hope they said yes. I said how long and they said about a year; but I would have to be isolated in a hospital and take medication and be on bed rest for 6 months before any surgery could be performed
Everything they said after that kind of flew right by me, because I was focused on getting well and back in school. I didn’t know how depressing the preparation for surgery would turn out to be.
The recovery plan was as follows; since I lived in Evansville I would be confined to a sanitarium there for 3 months and in January I would be transferred back to one in Indianapolis and 3 months later I would have surgery if all my sputum test were negative. Finally I would recover for 3 more months in Indianapolis and be released home to return to school the following September 1955.
I called my parents and a long painful ordeal began, starting with confinement in Boehne Hospital, a sanitarium in Evansville. I was segregated in a basement room along with three young Black women down the corridor. My memory of this dungeon is vivid to this day a chipped white hospital bed in the corner of a green painted room with two small windows that looked out to window wells……no view, only light could be seen. Here I would spend my days and nights with no occupational therapy, no visitors, a dimly lit ceiling light to read by and the only human contact was the nurse with meds and food and shouting down the hall to the women. The only time I was taken out of my room was for x-rays once a month and be examined by the doctor. The doctor never came down to the basement, ever! I guess if you died, they would take you upstairs to be pronounced.
One of the most memorable things that lifted my spirits was a letter I received from a very attractive young southern lady I met in Bloomington. I had written her of my illness and my despondence and she wrote me words of encouragement and sent a pin up picture, that I indeed put on the wall above my bed. My mother was so impressed with her concern for me she kept that letter in her personal papers. Some how it was lost, but I never forgot the lady, her name was Lauree a name I never forgot and over the years I tried to find out what had become of her. Recently, our paths serendipitously crossed and I reconnected with her.
My plan was to read the text books of the courses I would be taking once back in school, but the surroundings were so depressing I couldn’t concentrate and finally gave up. The only way I could pass the time was to sketch. Unfortunately, over the years I have lost all of these drawings. I wish I could analyze them now to see what I drew back then.
Just before Christmas they released me to go home and be transferred to Sunnyside TB Hospital in Indianapolis.
This hospital was in the northeastern portion of Marion county and was on a beautiful portion of wooded land. Unfortunately, I was segregated here and isolated in a private room. Having little human contact was as if I was in prison for a crime. They kept me isolated here until January of 1955 and then placed me in a unit called the pavilion where I had a large sunny window filled room over looking the woods. They had a library cart that came around weekly and I read every and any thing.
I had a nurse all of them were white who would come see me and sit and talk and provide me with much needed human contact. Sometimes her supervisor would scold her for the attention she gave me but she ignored her and kept coming by until I was transferred to another building for surgery.
My surgery was scheduled around the middle of March 1955 to be performed by two of the best thoracic surgeons at IU. One of my class mates a white friend agreed to special nurse me post op. He did the cut down for my IV and maintained my chest tubes while I was in recovery. All went well and I now was on the road to recovery that entailed 3 TB medications for the next year. The surgery was successful and I recovered completely and have had no problem with TB since.
Once I was post op, I was taken out of isolation for the first time after being in isolation for 6 months. I could have visitors now and several young women would come see me on weekends. This is how I met the woman I eventually married.
In June of 1955, I was discharge and allowed to go home to Evansville with the plan that I was to be reinstated to the 2nd year class with the provision that I could not take a full course load. I would have to take either Microbiology or Biochemistry in summer school, I chose to take Micro at University of Michigan the summer of 1956. That is another story. My spirits were gradually returning but I had a fatalistic view of life.
Wc;1560
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