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Pioneering Health Equity: The Life & Medical Career of Dr Virginia M. Alexander

On the 11th March 2024, the University of Liverpool’s History Department hosted the annual Frances Ivens Lecture, where visiting Prof. Gamble examined the life of Dr. Virginia M. Alexander, an African-American physician-activist. One of Department’s students, Mollie Hynes, attended and gave an account of what she learnt.

In this year’s annual Frances Ivens Lecture, Professor Vanessa Northington Gamble offered invaluable insight into the career, achievements and challenges faced by Dr Virginia M. Alexander (1899-1949). The event was co-hosted by the Centre for Health, Arts, Society and Environment, the Centre for the Study of International Slavery, the Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems and the Department of History.

The title of this lecture, “Pioneering Health Equity,” applies equally to Dr Gamble, a pioneer in the histories of race and racism in medicine and public health. Professor of Medical Humanities, Medicine, Health Policy and American Studies at George Washington University, she is currently writing the biography of Dr Virginia M. Alexander, a Black female physician and activist who worked to expose the discrimination and racism faced by Black patients and physicians in the American medical profession and healthcare system.

Personal Connections

In the decision to write Alexander’s biography, Dr Gamble noted a series of personal connections they shared. Looking past the similarity of their work as physicians, both Gamble and Alexander grew up in Philadelphia, and had spent time living in Washington DC and Alabama. Both were graduates of the University of Pennsylvania, it was here that Gamble’s mentor, Dr Helen Dickens, introduced her to the life of Alexander, who she had practiced with in 1935. The most convincing of these connections for Gamble to begin writing Alexander’s biography was the discovery that their ancestors had been enslaved in Mecklenburg County, Virginia.

Overcoming Individual Challenges

In the recognition of activism and individual activists, the personal challenges faced by those campaigning for broader, bigger structural changes often become obscured. This was a key theme that Dr Gamble highlighted in discussing the life of Alexander. In 1920, Alexander began her study at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she was the only Black American in her class. At this time, only 65 Black women physicians practiced across the United States. Facing discrimination from fellow students and professors throughout her higher education, Alexander’s activism began in 1924 as she led a protest to denounce the racism from a professor at the college. At her graduation in 1925, difficulties followed in finding an internship. Many hospitals did not accept Black interns and were particularly reluctant to accept female interns. Alexander eventually secured a position at Kansas City Hospital in Missouri, becoming the first female intern alongside her U. Penn classmate.

Aspiranto Health Home

In 1927, Alexander returned to Philadelphia and began to provide outpatient care in her home. This became Aspiranto Health Home in 1930, a practice primarily for maternity care and for the Black community of Philadelphia, who faced difficultly in finding healthcare. Aspiranto Health Home was a uniquely interracial practice, with over 2000 Black and white patients being treated by 1933. The importance of interracial relations to Alexander is clear in her activism, as she used her ties to Quakerism to gain support for her 1935 report on the health problems of North Philadelphia.

Opposing Racism in Medicine

The report by Alexander connected the social and political factors of inadequate housing, education, employment and healthcare for the Black population to the cause of her North Philadelphia neighbourhood’s health disparities. Widening these disparities was the racism faced by Black patients in hospitals and by Black physicians in their professions. Using Quakerism to gain white attention and support, Alexander’s influence meant the Race Relations Committee of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, a predominantly white group, attempted to address and oppose racism in medicine. Alexander recognised that action against racism in medicine was not restricted to the profession but hinged on political and religious support too. She advocated for health equity throughout her life and career, long before it was considered a national public health issue.

The event highlighted the activism of an inspirational Black female physician, whose contributions to tackling racism in medicine and public health are both under recognised and were ahead of her time. To find out more about the life and career of Dr Virginia M. Alexander, alongside the activism of other Black female physicians, below is some further reading.

Vanessa Northington Gamble, “Outstanding Services to Negro Health”: Dr. Dorothy Boulding Ferebee, Dr. Virginia M. Alexander, and Black Women Physicians’ Public Health Activism,” American Journal of Public Health 106, no. 8 (August 1, 2016): pp. 1397-1404.

New publication announced: Corporeal Pedagogy: Visualizing Anatomy Through Art, Archaeology and Medicine

Newcastle Medical Humanities Network is thrilled to announced the latest published chapter by members Dr Olivia Turner and Dr Sally Waite, ‘Corporeal Pedagogy: Visualizing Anatomy Through Art, Archaeology, and Medicine’ in Graphic Medicine, Humanizing Healthcare and Novel Approaches in Anatomical Education. Biomedical Visualization, vol 3. Springer International.

Abstract

This chapter outlines the educational methodology, Corporeal Pedagogy established by Dr. Olivia Turner and Dr. Sally Waite, which uses the Shefton Collection of Greek Art and Archaeology for interdisciplinary teaching and learning. This methodology considers the relationship between objects, art, and medicine to better understand how we visualize and imagine the visceral body. It aims to create a form of learning and teaching that addresses and challenges certain conventional modes of Western education, particularly within a European university setting, and to instead facilitate embodied and haptic learning and production of knowledge. Corporeal Pedagogy explores ancient and contemporary notions of the body and embodiment, and how our perception of anatomy changes during experiences of transition, illness, and disease. The participating students used object handling, creative practice, meditation, and selected readings to investigate what it means to learn through the body. Within a university setting, the workshops illustrate the transformative role objects can play in education to facilitate radical forms of teaching and learning in the field of medical humanities.

Read here.

Constructing Scientific Communities: Citizen Science in the 19th and 21st Centuries

Title of project:

Constructing Scientific Communities: Citizen Science in the 19^th and 21^st Centuries

Name and institution of principle investigators:

Professor Sally Shuttleworth, University of Oxford

Names and institutions of co-investigators/ collaborators:

Professor Chris Lintott, University of Oxford

Professor Gowan Dawson, University of Leicester

Julie Harvey, Natural History Museum

Paul Cooper, Natural History Museum

Dr John Tweddle, Natural History Museum

Dr Sam Alberti, Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons

Thalia Knight, Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons

Keith Moore, the Royal Society

Names and institutions of postdoctoral research assistants:

Dr Sally Frampton, University of Oxford

Dr Geoffrey Belknap, University of Leicester

Dr Berris Charnley, University of Oxford

Dr Jim O’Donnell, University of Oxford

Names and institutions of PhD students:

Alison Moulds, University of Oxford

Matthew Wale, University of Leicester
Funding sources:

The AHRC

Summary of research:

This project brings together historical and literary research in the nineteenth century with twenty-first century scientific practice, looking at the ways in which patterns of popular communication and engagement in nineteenth-century science can offer models for current practice. It is based at the Universities of Oxford and Leicester, in partnership with the Natural History Museum, the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Royal Society. Researchers are drawing on these institutions’ historical collections, particularly science and medical journals of the nineteenth century. They also work with their scientific communities, addressing questions about the creation and circulation of knowledge in the digital age, and looking at innovative ways of breaking through the public/professional divide.
Project website/webpage:

http://conscicom.org/

Anticipated time frame of project:

3 years (December 2013- December 2017)

Anticipated audiences:

Historians of Science and Medicine, Cultural and Literary Historians of the Nineteenth Century, Scientific and Medical Professionals, Citizen Scientists and Patients

Tagged as: 

Medical Humanities, History of Science, History of Medicine, Journals, Interdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinary Research

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