2B
Black History/Clje Cljarlotte Jlost
Thursday, February 5, 2004
(
Medical Marvels
istory
Neurosurgeon called upon for delicate operations
By Herbert L. White
herb. white@lhecharlotieix)st. com
Dr. Ben Carson’s reputation
as a neurosurgeon has grown
to global proportions.
Last year, he made head
lines as part of the medical
team that separated cojoined
twins in Singapore. Although
the sisters died, Carson said
they knew there was a
chance surgery would fail.
After meeting the two
Iranian sisters conjoined at
the head, they told Carson,
the director of pediatric neu
rosurgery at Johns Hopkins
Carson
University
and Johns
Hopkins
Hospital,
they would
rather die
than live
another day
attached. It
was his job
as consult
ing neuro
surgeon to help separate
them.
“I was taken by their level of
intelligence but also their
state of depression,” Carson
told the Baltimore Business
Journal. “They had just
reached the end of their rope,
and they couldn’t stand to be
together anymore.”
After a 53-hour operation —
“which actually went pretty
well until we got into the last
hour or two,” Carson said —
the twins died from uncon
trollable bleeding. Carson
had to deal with the failure
while juggling an interna
tional media bent on covering
the twins’ story.
While he defined the opera
tion as a failure, Carson said
it was the beginning of
progress — even for someone
considered to be among the
world’s best pediatric neuro
surgeons.
“I think there are a number
of things that you can take
away from this,” he said. ‘Tou
learn and you have to make
sure that you learn from
every failure. You can only do
what you can do; you do your
best and let God do the rest.”
Carson’s stake in pediatrics
stems from many factors,
including his faith and a
desire to get a good return on
Charles Drew pioneered blood bank
SPECIAL TO THE POST
African American sur
geon Charles Richard
Drew (1904-1950) was a
pioneer in developing the
blood bank and was an out
standing leader in the
training of surgeons.
Drew was born in
Washington, D.C., on June
3, 1904, the eldest of five
children. The close-knit
family lived in modest cir
cumstances and was highly
respected.
Drew was educated in the
Washington public schools.
He earned a bachelor of
arts degree from Amherst
College (1926) and his doc
tor of medicine and master
of surgery degrees from
McGill University in
Canada (1933). Having
decided upon a career in
surgery, he went to
Howard University in
Washington, D.C., in 1935.
After the next year as a
surgical resident, he was
sent by Howard for 2 years
of advanced study under a
General Education Board
fellowship to Columbia
University, which awarded
him the doctor of medical
science degree.
At Columbia, under the
direction of John Scudder,
Drew completed his pio
neering and definitive the
sis Banked Blood (1940).
The Blood Transfusion
Betterment Association in
New York funded various
programs of research; one
of these, on blood plasma,
was conducted by Scudder
and Drew. In 1940, during
World War II, Scudder sug
gested that the association
ship dried plasma to
France and England. The
association appointed Drew
director of its “Blood for
Britain” project in
September 1940.
In 1941 Drew was
appointed director of the
first American Red Cross
Bank and assistant direc
tor of blood procurement
for the National Research
Council, in charge of blood
for use by the U.S. Army
and Navy. He criticized the
policy of segregating blood
racially as having no scien
tific basis.
In October 1941 Drew
returned to Howard as
head of the department of
surgery and was made an
examiner for the American
Board of Surgery. Chief of
staff of Freedmen’s
Hospital from 1944 to 1946,
he was appointed medical
director of the hospital for
1946-1947. At Howard,
Drew firmly established a
progressive modern
surgery program. He was a
dynamic and inspirational
teacher. While he was still
alive, eight of his residents
became diplomates of the
American Board of
Surgery, and many more
who started their training
under him became board-
certified and did significant
work all over the world.
Drew published 19
papers, the first 13 dealing
with blood therapy. The
last 6 reflected broadening
interests, one posthumous
Drew
title being “Negro Scholars
in Scientific
Research.”
During six
years as
chairman of
the surgical
section of
the
National
Medical
Association,
Drew
brought new vigor and
standards to the group. He
was in demand as a speak
er, and he served on
numerous boards with a
wide spectrum of interests,
including the 12th Street
Branch of the YMCA in
Washington.
Most of Drew’s achieve
ments were promptly rec
ognized. He received the
Spingarn Medal of the
NAACP (1943) and hon
orary doctor of science
degrees from Virginia State
College and Amherst
College. In 1946 he became
a fellow of the
International College of
Surgeons and served in
We Salute Black History
Williams performed
first heart surgery
By Dr. Donita Brown
SPECIAL TO THE POST
Daniel Hale Wilhams was bom at HoUidaysburg, Pa., the
son of Daniel and Sarah (Price) Williams.
He attracted the interest of Dr. Henry Palmer, one of the
leading surgeons of that section, and in 1878
began the study of medicine in his office. In
1883 he was graduated with the degree of
M.D. at the Chicago Medical College, the med
ical department of Northwestern University.
After an intemeship in Mercy Hospital he
entered practice in Chicago, associating him
self with the surgical service of the South Side
Dispensary (1884-91). He was appointed
demonstrator of anatomy at his alma mater in
1885, holding the position for four years.
ReaUzing the lack of facihties for the training of colored men
as internes and of colored women as nurses, he organized
Provident Hospital in 1891, which stands as an enduring mon
ument to him. Its training school for nurses was the first for
colored women in the United States. He served on the surgical
staff of this hospital from its opening until 1912.
He served on the surgical staff of Cook County Hospital from
1900 to 1906, and from 1907 to the time of his death he was an
associate attending surgeon to St. Luke’s Hospital. When in
1899 he was appointed professor of clinical surgery at Meharry
Medical College at Nashville, Tfenn., he inaugurated the first
surgical clinics given at that institution.
Though careful and methodical in his surgical technique he
was a daring operator. He is credited with having performed in
1893 the first successful surgical closure of a wound of the
heart and pericardium. He also perfected a suture for the
arrest of hemorrhage from the spleen.
The beginning of his surgical career was coincident with the
advent of asepsis, which he adopted and followed consistently.
Williams
fn
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his investment of effort.
Seeing a child live a healthy
life following an operation he
performs is slightly more sat
isfying than operating on
adults, he said.
“God, I think he gave us tal
ent so we could improve
mankind. That’s what I see
myself as trying to do,” he
said. “The thing I like about
kids is that you get a lot more
bang for the buck; your
reward might be 40 or 50
years of life. You don’t get that
from an adult.”
A little less television as a
child helped him hone his
academic and social skills.
“As with everything, I tend
not to be a traditionalist,” he
said. “My mother used to
always say, “Why do you look
at TV? Develop your mind.’ I
guess I took that to heart; use
the brain God gave you to
think.”
Carson is preparing for
another possible surgery for
another set of conjoined twins
bom in Europe last year.
When the babies are at least
three months old, they will
probably be flown to the
United States for the opera
tion, he said.
1949 as surgical consultant
to the surgeon general,
U.S. Army. Drew’s radiant
geniality and warm sense
of humor endeared him to
patients. He married
Minnie Lenore Robbins on
Sept. 23, 1939, and the cou
ple had four children. He
was killed in an automobile
accident on April 1, 1950.
In 1959 Sigma Pi Phi fra
ternity presented an oil
portrait of Drew to the
American National Red
Cross. In Los Angeles the
Charles R. Drew Medical
Society and the Charles R.
Drew Postgraduate
Medical School of the
Martin Luther King Jr.
Hospital perpetuate his
name. A health center in
Brooklyn and the Harlem
Hospital Center blood bank
in New York City are
named for him. The surgi
cal section of the National
Medical Association has an
annual Charles R. Drew
Forum for the presentation
of original surgical
research, and about 20
public schools have been
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