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Surgeons at work. By Agerardo

15 Famous African American Doctors That Changed the World

Everyday Health salutes the accomplishments of the African Americans who actually brought contributions to the sector of health.

These great men and women influenced the direction of healthcare and race relations in the United States. They created first-of-their-kind medical devices, pioneered novel surgical procedures, paved the way for better patient access to quality care, and raised awareness about quality-of-life issues.

Their contributions can be found in hospitals and clinics, doctors’ offices, schools, universities, and research laboratories.

The famous fifteen and their contributions will be the focus of this article. Let’s look into it.

1. Daniel Hale Williams

Daniel Hale Williams.By Domain

 Hale Williams earned a medical degree and began working as a surgeon in Chicago in 1884 after apprenticing with a surgeon. Hospitals at the time barred Black doctors from working on staff due to discrimination. As a result, Dr. Williams established the nation’s first Black-owned interracial hospital.

African American interns were trained at Provident Hospital, which also established America’s first school for Black nurses. Williams successfully repaired the pericardium (the sac surrounding the heart) of a man who had been stabbed in a knife fight on July 10, 1893. The procedure is widely regarded as the first documented successful open-heart surgery on a human. And Williams is widely regarded as the first African American cardiologist.

He went on to become the first Black physician admitted to the American College of Surgeons and co-found the National Medical Association.

Read: Famous American Doctors

2. Herbert W. Nickens

Herbert W. Nickens, MD, established the Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 1986, laying the groundwork for promoting improved health among racial and ethnic minority populations across the country.

Nickens left the HHS to become the founding vice president of the AAMC Division of Community and Minority Programs, now known as Diversity Policy and Programs.

He oversaw Project 3000 by 2000, which was launched by the AAMC in 1991 with the goal of enrolling 3,000 students from underrepresented minority groups in U.S. medical schools each year by the year 2000.

The AAMC honors outstanding medical students, junior faculty, and individuals who have made significant contributions to social justice in academic medicine and healthcare equity with three named awards in Nickens’ honor.

 Read: Famous Doctors in the World

3. Rebecca Lee Crumpler

Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first black woman in the United States to receive an MD degree in 1864, after years as a nurse. She received that honor at the New England Female Medical College in Boston, Massachusetts. 

She was also the only black graduate. Crumpler relocated to Richmond, Virginia, after the Civil War, where she collaborated with other black doctors caring for formerly enslaved people in the Freedmen’s Bureau. Despite encountering sexism and other forms of harassment, Crumpler found the experience to be transformative.

A Book of Medical Discourses: In Two Parts was also written by Crumpler. The book, which was published in 1883, is about children’s and women’s health and is written for “mothers, nurses, and all who may desire to mitigate the afflictions of the human race.”

4. James McCune Smith

Picture Courtesy of American Press.

Dr. James McCune Smith was a pioneer. He became the first black American to receive a medical degree in 1837. Despite having to enroll at the University of Glasgow Medical School due to racist admissions practices at U.S. medical schools.

And that was far from his only ground-breaking achievement. He was also the first black person to own and operate a pharmacy in the United States, as well as the first black physician to be published in American medical journals.

Smith used his writing skills to challenge bad science, including racist stereotypes of African-Americans. Most notably, he debunked such theories in Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. Smith was a staunch abolitionist and a friend of Frederick Douglass. He contributed to Douglass’ newspaper.

5. Marilyn Hughes Gaston

Marilyn Hughes Gaston, MD, had a pivotal experience as an intern at Philadelphia General Hospital in 1964 when she admitted a baby with a swollen, infected hand.

The baby had sickle cell disease, which Gaston had not considered until her supervisor suggested it. Her research demonstrated the advantages of screening for sickle cell disease at birth. Also the effectiveness of penicillin in preventing sepsis, which can be fatal in sickle cell disease children.

Gaston was the first black female physician to be appointed director of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Bureau of Population Health in 1990.

6. Charles Richard Drew

Charles Richard Drew. By Darwinex.

Charles Richard Drew, MD, known as the “Father of Blood Banking,” pioneered blood preservation techniques that resulted in thousands of lifesaving blood donations.

Drew’s doctoral research investigated best practices for banking and transfusions, and the findings aided in the establishment of the first large-scale blood banks. Drew oversaw the Blood for Britain project, which delivered desperately needed plasma to England during WWII.

Drew then established the first American Red Cross Blood Bank and developed mobile blood donation stations known as bloodmobiles. He resigned from the American Red Cross after protesting the organization’s policy of segregating blood by race. Drew’s true love was surgery.

In Washington, D.C., he was named chairman of the department of surgery and chief of surgery at Freedmen’s Hospital (now known as Howard University Hospital). During his tenure, he went to great lengths to assist young African-Americans interested in pursuing careers in the discipline.

7. Alexa Irene Canady

Alexa Irene Canady, MD, nearly dropped out of college due to a lack of confidence but went on to achieve remarkable success in medicine. She became the first black neurosurgeon in the United States in 1981. 

Only a few years later, she was promoted to chief of neurosurgery at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Canady had been a successful pediatric neurosurgeon for decades and was ready to retire in Florida in 2001.

But she put on her surgical scrubs again to work part-time at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, where pediatric neurosurgery services were scarce. Canady has been praised for her patient-centered approach to care, which she describes as a career boon.

8. Dr. William Augustus Hinton

Syphilis and Its Treatment, 1936, was the first textbook published by an African American physician. He is best known internationally for developing the “Hinton Test,” a flocculation method for detecting syphilis.

Dr. Hinton is also the first African American to be appointed as a professor at Harvard. From 1900 to 1902, he attended the University of Kansas before transferring to Harvard, where he graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1912.

He taught bacteriology and immunology at Harvard from 1921 to 1946 before being promoted to clinical professor in 1949.

9. Dr. Ben Carson

Picture By Michael Vadon.

Pediatric Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore (at the age of 32).

Separated Siamese twins joined at the cranium in 1987. Dr. Carson led a 70-member surgical team that operated for 22 hours.
Yale University graduate; MD, University of Michigan School of Medicine

In his, Gifted Hands (1990), he describes himself as an unmotivated child from the Detroit ghetto.

Read: Best Detroit Chiropractors

10. Dr. Mae C. Jemison

Dr. Mae C. Jemison. By NASA

NASA’s first black female astronaut (August 1992). Dr. Jemison received her M.D. from Cornell University in 1981 and went on to work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine research (CDC).

On the shuttle Endeavour, she continued and literally elevated her medical research by conducting experiments in materials processing and life sciences in space.

11. Leonidas Harris Berry

Leonidas Harris Berry, MD, a renowned gastroenterologist, was subjected to workplace racism. Berry was the first black doctor to work at Chicago’s Michael Reese Hospital in 1946.  

He was finally named to the attending staff in 1963 and remained there for the rest of his medical career as a senior attending physician. Berry chaired a commission in Chicago that worked to make hospitals more welcoming to black physicians and to expand facilities in underserved areas of the city.

He was a member of the Flying Black Medics. A group of doctors flew from Chicago to Cairo to provide medical care and health education to members of the remote community.

12. Mary Eliza Mahoney

Picture Courtesy of Domain.

The first African-American professional nurse in the United States (1879). Mary was born in Boston on April 16, 1845, after her parents relocated from North Carolina. Black children were not allowed to attend schools alongside White children in Boston until 1855.

And domestic service was the only way for a Negro woman to make a living. Mary was a “nurse” for several prominent white families prior to entering formal nurse training. Having been interested in a nursing career since the age of eighteen.

She was the “first colored girl admitted” (Medical and Nursing Record Book, 1878) to the nurse training program at the New England Hospital for Women and Children on March 23, 1878; she graduated sixteen months later, at the age of thirty-four. (Henry Miller, Mahoney’s biographer, was an Associate Professor of Nursing Research at North Carolina Central University.)

13. Dr. Charles DeWitt Watts

In North Carolina, he is the first African American to be certified by a surgical specialty board.
Contributed significantly to the establishment of Lincoln Community Health Center.

In 1950, he became Chief of Surgery at Lincoln Hospital. Lincoln was one of the few American hospitals at the time that gave African-American physicians surgical privileges.

Dr. Charles Drew mentored him during his surgical training at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, DC.
Worked to prepare Lincoln’s interns and residents for board certification and persuaded Duke University Medical School to supervise Lincoln’s training program so that students could become board certified.

Fought alongside other community leaders for the establishment of one integrated public health care facility, Durham Regional Hospital, which opened in 1967 in Durham. As a result, both Watts and Lincoln hospitals were closed.

 14. Louis Wade Sullivan

Louis Wade Sullivan. By Bluerasberry

In the 1930s, Louis Wade Sullivan, MD, grew up in the racially segregated rural South. His doctor, Joseph Griffin, inspired him there. “He was the only black physician within a 100-mile radius,” Sullivan said.  

Sullivan became an equally profound source of inspiration over the years. He was the only black student in his class at Boston University School of Medicine, and he went on to teach there from 1966 to 1975.

Louis became the founding dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine in 1975. The first predominantly black medical school to open in the United States in the twentieth century. He is CEO and chair of the Sullivan Alliance, an organization he created in 2005 to increase racial and ethnic minority representation in health care.

15. Regina Marcia Benjamin

Picture By United States Mission Geneva.

Regina Marcia Benjamin, MD, MBA, is perhaps best known for her time as the 18th Surgeon General of the United States. During which she served as the first chair of the National Prevention Council.

The National Prevention Strategy outlined plans to improve health and well-being in the United State.  

She is the founder and CEO of BayouClinic, a small Gulf Coast town that provides clinical care, social services, and health education to its residents.

Benjamin helped rebuild the clinic several times more, including after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a fire in 2006.