MUSEUM BLOG
Black History Month: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was a medical trailblazer whose life and legacy revolutionized healthcare practices while simultaneously breaking down racial barriers.
Black History Month: Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark
Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark’s ground-breaking research on child development and racial prejudice was instrumental to the field of psychology and the desegregation of the American schooling system.
Black History Month: Dr. Douglas Salmon
As one of only four Black students at the University of Toronto’s medical school, in 1955 Dr. J Douglas Salmon graduated and would go on to become president of Scarborough Centenary Hospital’s medical staff, and chief of general surgery – the first black person in Canada to hold these positions. He also became one of the first surgeons in Canada to treat people who were morbidly obese with the then life-changing treatment, gastric bypass surgery.
Black History Month: Clotilda Douglas-Yakimchuk
Born and raised in Whitney Pier, Nova Scotia, Clotilda Douglas-Yakimchuk became the first Black graduate of the Nova Scotia Hospital School of Nursing in 1954. She also went on to earn a postgraduate midwifery diploma and psychiatric nursing certificate, and diploma in adult education. Clotilda is also the only Black President in the history of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Nova Scotia (now known as The College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia) to date.
Black History Month: Dr. June Marion James
Inspired by her grandmother and spurred on by her family’s experience with typhoid, Dr. June Marion James attended the University of Manitoba with the intention of pursuing a career in medicine. She was the first Black woman to attend the university, and only Black woman of the six women in its medical program in 1963.
The Story of Dr. Leonidas H. Berry and His Gastroscope
Born in North Carolina in 1902, Dr. Leonidas Berry was one of the leading gastroenterologists of his time. After working as the first black intern at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, he went on to become a junior attending physician at Chicago's Provident Hospital, the first American hospital owned and operated by African-Americans.