Our Predecessors.
Louis Tompkins Wright, MD, FACS
(1891–1952)Dr. Wright served in the Army Medical Corps during World War I. During his service, he developed a better vaccination technique to protect soldiers from smallpox. He also became an expert in head injuries.
Dr. Wright worked primarily in New York. In 1919, he was the first African American staff physician at New York's Harlem Hospital and later became the first African American surgeon hired by the New York City Police Department.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LOT 13074, no. 631
Jane Cooke Wright, MD
(1919-2013)Dr. Wright was the daughter of Dr. Louis Tompkins Wright and worked with her father studying chemotherapies to human leukemias and cancers. At age 33, she was appointed the head of the Cancer Research Foundation.
Dr. Wright worked primarily in New York. In, 1964, she was appointed to the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke. She also became the first woman president of the New York Cancer Society and published her research internationally.
2020. American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Charles Richard Drew, MD
(1904-1950)Dr. Drew did research in the field of blood transfusions and improved field techniques to help save the lives of thousands in World War II. He also protested against blood segregation as director of the first American Red Cross Bank.
Dr. Drew worked and did research primarily in Washington, DC. In 1941, he became the first African-American surgeon to selected to serve as examiner on the American Board of Surgery.
By Associated Photographic Services, Inc - National Library of Medicine: Howard University. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. Charles R. Drew Papers, PD-US
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