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Laura Schweitzer, Ph.D., acting dean of the School of Medicine, said the symposium provided a public venue to discuss "issues and experiences that are vitally important to each of us and our work, so that we can keep the spirit of the Brown v. Board of Education decision alive and well in every aspect of our admissions process and the experiences of our students, patients and faculty members." As David Wiegman, Ph.D., vice dean for academic affairs, observed, the event was a "celebration of change." And in the five decades since Brown, the School of Medicine has changed substantially, he told an audience of more than 250 people who gathered for the symposium. UofL's timeline for progress actually began in 1951, three years prior to Brown, when the medical school admitted its first African American student. For years later, in 1955, the late Joseph Alexander, M.D., received his medical degree, becoming the school's first African American graduate. During its first 30 years of integration, the UofL School of Medicine produced 19 African American physicians -- a figure that certainly represented an improvement over none, but still "just a trickle," Wiegman said. To address that problem, the school opened an Office of Special Programs in 1984 that focused on recruiting and supporting underrepresented minorities and disadvantaged rural students. As a result, the number of African American graduates climbed from an annual average of two in the early 1980s to six in the 1990s and 12 in the 2000s, Wiegman said. "I certainly am proud of what the Special Programs office has stood for, and I'm delighted with those accomplishments, but I certainly don't think it's the end of our work," he said. "It's just a beginning." A different beginning took place in the spring of 1950, when C. Milton Young III, M.D., became the first African American to enroll as an undergraduate at the University of Louisville. By 1952, he had earned his bachelor's degree and found himself en route to Korea as the only African American serving in his U.S. Medical Corps unit. Following a two-year tour of duty, Young returned to the states and completed a course in medical technology at Meharry Medical College, but his appetite for knowledge only grew. Medical school seemed the next logical step, so he applied to UofL, where "I ran smack into my old nemesis, Jim Crow," Young said at the symposium. "During my brief interview with one of the professors, he observed that I was a certified medical technologist and stated that, 'Since very few of your people are as well-trained in the technical field as you are, why do you want to spend the next eight years to go into medicine?' "I was aware that he had a Ph.D. and an M.D., and I commented that I had the same reason he had when he was not satisfied with his Ph.D. Once I had called that to his attention, he slammed his notebook closed, announced that the interview was over and walked out of the room with the parting comment that he had had his fill of arrogant negroes." Young, a Louisville internist who subsequently earned his M.D. from Meharry, later returned to UofL and became the first African American to complete an internship at Louisville General Hospital, which has since been replaced by University Hospital. Delores Gordon Alleyne, M.D., the medical school's first female African American graduate, framed her discussion by telling the audience about a childhood permeated by racism. Her great grandfather, who died when she was six, was born a slave and wasn't emancipated until the age of 12. Segregated bathrooms and water fountains were a fact of life in her hometown of Pulaksi, Tenn. -- birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. Her family later moved to Louisville where she attended high school and, in 1949, enrolled in Louisville Municipal College, the African American branch of the University of Louisville. LMC closed its doors in 1951 as UofL completed the process of racial integration, and Alleyne applied for transfer to the school's Belknap campus, where she attended classes with white students. "It was a very pleasant surprise to me to find out that I was at least as smart as the average white guy in biology," recalled Alleyne, who went on to teach at several medical schools and spend the bulk of her career as a pediatrician at the Los Angeles County Health Department before retiring in 1999. After earning a bachelor's degree, Alleyne applied for admission to the UofL School of Medicine. Like Young, she said she experienced "an interesting interview," but her outcome was far more pleasing. "I interviewed with Dr. Arch Cole, the anatomy professor who was the nemesis of every student in the medical school," she said. "When I interviewed, he told me quite honestly that I had two strikes against me: I was colored and I was a woman. So I said, 'Hey throw the ball. I'm ready to come out swinging.' "Cole's
grim face then cracked a smile as if to say, 'That's what I wanted
to hear.' " "Fortunately, I'm not easily intimidated," she said. That same attitude helped her navigate race relations. "I've always felt that if someone had a problem with me, that was their problem. And so, in that way, I got through a lot of situations. Most of my classmates were respectful of me, as I was of them. I learned a lot here -- knowledge, skills, work habits, how to get along with people -- and that has served me well throughout my life." Quinton C. James, M.D., who earned a medical degree from UofL in 1961, recalled for the audience a campus marked by overt racism as well as caring individuals who reached out to provide assistance. "On the first day, I encountered some hostility and resentment," James said. "Some students wanted to know how I got in and asked why I didn't attend a black medical school. I told them I was a resident of Kentucky, was qualified and had every right to attend UofL." For more than a year, his locker mate, a white student, never said a word to him, as though he were invisible. Others did the same. "It was an isolating experience, but I didn't let that bother me. I wasn't here to make friends, but to get an education, and so I was only more determined. At the end, I felt that all of my teachers were interested in my succeeding. These were fantastic people and extremely helpful." James noted that his grades were better than those of many white students, which "forced some of my classmates to change their perception of me and helped destroy the myth that whites were more intelligent than blacks." He went on head a private psychiatry practice and served as regional chief at the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health's South Central Mental Health Services division. One especially positive experience James had at UofL involved his participation in an OB-GYN research project headed by the late Laman Gray Sr., M.D., a UofL faculty member whom he described as "an outstanding clinician." "He taught me so much as we went from patient to patient to patient -- so much so that when I got to Los Angeles (for an internship), one of the second-year residents in OB-GYN told me, 'Quint, you know more than I do.' And I attributed that to the research project with Dr. Gray, which was published in the annals of the New York Academy of Sciences." Elmer E. Dunbar, M.D., who graduated from the School of Medicine in 1978, told the audience he felt constant pressure to prove that African American students were just as intelligent as whites. He also noted that many white students had never interacted much with African Americans. "I later learned, as time went by, that they didn't hate me, they didn't dislike me -- they'd just never met a black person before," he said. "They had stereotypes of what a black person should look like and sound like, and I didn't fit the bill." Dunbar observed that the School of Medicine had just one African American faculty member during his matriculation -- a figure that has increased to 21 today -- and no formal recruitment programs to attract minority students. To help remedy that situation, Dunbar, his wife, Delores, and an African American admissions coordinator would drive to area schools as part of an informal recruitment campaign. "We can sit still and get passed, or (we can) do something," said Dunbar, a staff anesthesiologist at Louisville's Norton Audubon Hospital and a former president of the Louisville Society of Anesthesia. Karen W. Krigger, M.D., came to the School of Medicine after already earning bachelor's and master's degrees from UofL. "I am home-gown," said Krigger, who earned her M.D. from UofL in 1988. "This is where I found the need to do my work." And so Krigger remains at the university today as an associate professor of family and geriatric medicine. Krigger described her first two years of medical school as being in a "protective environment," in part because of the support she received from several faculty and staff members. "I started a list of faculty that I found to be supportive in the medical school, (but) it was so extensive that I was afraid I was going to leave someone out," Krigger said. "That doesn't mean that I didn't meet some people who weren't all that helpful. "We had a sense that people wanted us there, and that they wanted us to succeed. There was an underground sense, though, that we got there because of special (treatment)." Krigger said that role models were tremendously important, and these came courtesy of the Falls City Medical Society, a local organization of African American physicians. "We got to see black physicians, and that was very, very important," she said. Ian T. Johnson, M.D., a 1999 UofL graduate who was class president for four years, credits much of his success to the School of Medicine's Medical Education Development, or MED, program, which gives promising minority and disadvantaged rural students a shot at medical school even if their entrance exam scores fall below standard. "Despite my own determination and persistence to accomplish my goal of becoming a doctor, I wouldn't be standing here today if not for the MED program," Johnson said. "I truly believe this program is an excellent demonstration of the University of Louisville School of Medicine's commitment to diversity and the education and training of underrepresented minority groups." The program, established in 1988, gives participants a year of instruction in such areas as biochemistry and molecular biology before sending them on to join a first-year medical class the following year. Coursework is tailored to the needs of each student, and participants have access to various support services throughout their medical school careers. "Thankfully, (this program) provided me with a window of opportunity," Johnson recalled. "It was invaluable to me in so many ways, too numerous to list here." Johnson also expressed his gratitude for the "tireless work" of Mary Joshua, associate director in the Office of Special Programs. "I am convinced there is a direct correlation between the guidance and support provided by Ms. Joshua and the success of minority students here in the school of medicine," he said. Today, Johnson looks back on his UofL education with the confidence that he received top-notch training. "When it came time for me to graduate and move on to residency, I honestly felt that I had received an excellent education, and that I had been armed with the proper skill set and knowledge necessary to be successful. "Now, as a fifth-year neurological surgery resident at the Harvard Medical School affiliates Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Boston Children's Hospital, the best way to show my appreciation to UofL is to continue to perform on a daily basis with my attendings, my fellows, my fellow residents and medical students." Johnson concluded by calling for the establishment of an office for cultural diversity and minority affairs to further enhance UofL's efforts to increase the number of minority students and graduates. "I congratulate the medical school and the Health Sciences Center on positive efforts this far, and I challenge you to take the natural next step," he said. The most recent graduate to speak, Nana-Hawa Yayah, M.D., observed that many positive changes have taken place in the School of Medicine since the Brown decision: incoming students are better prepared, thanks to programs like MED, the number of role models and mentors has increased substantially, and far more African Americans are graduating, in part because of improved support efforts. "The support system of UofL is ever-present," said Yayah, a 2002 graduate who currently is in pediatric residency training at Washington University - St. Louis Children's Hospital. "The Falls City Medical Society; the National Medical Association; the Student National Medical Association; the Medical Student Sickle Cell project, (an educational and outreach program co-founded with UofL's Suzanne Ildstad, M.D.); and the student body itself -- all of these entities make it possible to keep an African American student here long enough to make them able bodied physicians." African American students also have new goals. For example, they no longer have to prove how smart they are, Yayah said. "With the support of African American and Caucasian colleagues, friends and mentors, there is no sense of inferiority," she said. "Our motivation to learn stems from the desire to achieve the goal to graduate. "So -- a lot of progress," she said in summation. "But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Most of our children are being educated by a failing public school system. We can't talk about medical education at UofL unless you talk about elementary education, high school education, college education." Yayah noted that two-thirds of the African American population lacks a high school diploma. "How can we talk about medical education when 12 percent of African Americans have a bachelor's degree and 5 percent of our brothers and sisters have an advanced degree?" she asked. "If we can't compete on an education level with our Caucasian counterparts, two-thirds of whom are in private schools or equivalent public schools, then we are doomed even before we start. "Our enemy has not changed, and the fight remains the same. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, I pay tribute to my mentors who carried the bricks that paved the roads that I walked on. I celebrate the accomplishments of my colleagues and how far we've come. "And I look to the medical students to see how far we must go." |
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