Blood brother

How Charles R. Drew improved medicine

Imagine spending years going to medical school, and more years developing specialized skills but not being able to fully practice on patients because of one seemingly simple barrier?

That was the situation Charles Richard Drew and other African American physicians faced in the late 1940s as they struggled to find a place in the American medical field.

Drew and his Black colleagues could not obtain membership in the American Medical Association (AMA), and at that time membership in this national organization or county medical societies was increasingly a requirement in order to gain hospital privileges and specialized training.

Local medical groups and AMA chapters often barred extending membership to Blacks.
But while these were definitely obstacles, Drew did not let them stop him from achieving distinction.

Drew was born in Washington, D.C., to Richard, a carpet layer and financial secretary of the Carpet, Linoleum and Soft-Tile Layers Union, and, Nora Burrell Drew, a graduate of Miner Normal School. This was a school for girls established in 1851 with the goal of training them to become teachers.

Drew, who grew up in the integrated, middle-class D.C. neighborhood known as Foggy Bottom with his younger siblings—Joseph, Elsie and Nora—was an enterprising youngster who at age 12 became a paper boy, selling newspapers from a corner stand. Within a year, he had parlayed the position into a business where six other boys worked for him.

Although he grew up in an household that emphasized academics and church attendance, Drew was not necessarily the best student. In fact, during his years at Dunbar High School, then noted as one of the best college-prep campuses in the nation for Black or White students, “Charlie,” as he was called, concentrated far more on athletics.

He lettered in four sports. In fact, he graduated high school in 1922 and went to Amherst College in Massachusetts on an athletic scholarship. At Amherst, his achievements in football and track became legendary.
It was Drew’s participation in football that was partly responsible for his decision to study medicine. He was hospitalized for a football injury, and that combined with the death of his sister Elsie (from tuberculosis complicated by influenza) spiked his interest in studying medicine.

After graduating from Amherst in 1926, the D.C. native worked two years at Morgan College (now Morgan State University) in Baltimore as athletic director and a biology and chemistry instructor. He did this to earn money to attend medical school.

But because of racial segregation, Drew could not attend Harvard University’s medical school as soon as he wanted to, although he had been accepted. He also could not get into Howard University because he lacked sufficient English credits.

Rather than defer his admission to Harvard for a year, as the school wanted, Drew applied and was accepted at McGill University Faculty of Medicine in Montreal, Quebec, in Canada.

He also had the opportunity there to play on its sports team.
Once again, he became a star athlete.

But at McGill, the doctor-in-training also became a serious student, winning fellowships and several key prizes. He graduated second in a class of 137 in 1933.

After leaving McGill, it was during his internship and surgical residency at Montreal General Hospital that Drew began to study a subject that would make him famous—blood. At the hospital, he worked closely with bacteriology professor John Beattie, who was exploring ways to treat shock with transfusions and other fluid replacement.

Unable to obtain a surgical residency at any major American hospital to extend his surgery training, Drew joined the faculty of Howard University in 1935 initially as a pathology instructor.

This move would be a key part of one of Drew’s other goals—to train as many highly skilled African American physicians as possible.

While at Howard, Drew would eventually become chief of surgery at Freedmen’s Hospital, the university’s teaching hospital.

In addition, while working at Howard, Drew finally earned a fellowship to train with eminent surgeon Allen O. Whipple at New York’s Presbyterian Hospital. He would also simultaneously do doctoral studies at Columbia University.

It was in New York that Drew continued his work with blood, this time with John Scudder, a physician who specialized in blood and who was studying treating shock, fluid balance, blood chemistry and preservation, and transfusion.
Scudder’s project was an experimental blood bank and would give Drew part of the foundation for the creation of the first large-scale blood bank for which he became noted.

After completing his fellowship and earning his doctorate in medical science from Columbia University (he became the first African American to earn such a degree from the university), Drew returned to Howard University to take up a post as assistant professor of surgery.

Back at Howard, he was invited to direct the Blood for Britain project. This was an effort during World War II to collect and ship plasma to Britain, which was at the time under attack by Germany.

In his role as director, Drew implemented uniform procedures and standards for collecting blood and processing plasma at the participating hospitals.

This work led to Drew being appointed assistant director of a pilot program for a national blood banking system. Among the innovations he developed in conjunction with this system were mobile blood donation stations. These were used extensively during the war.

Returning to Howard University, after Blood for Britain, Drew became chair of the Department of Surgery and chief of surgery at Freedmen’s Hospital. He also added another first to this resume—the first African American appointed an examiner for the American Board of Surgery.

Among the honors he amassed during his short life was the J. Francis Williams Fellowship, which was based on a competitive examination given annually to the top five students in his graduating class at McGill.

In 1941, he was appointed director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank, but resigned a year later after the U.S. government ruled that blood could be collected from African Americans but would be segregated.

In 1944, the NAACP awarded him the Spingarn Medal in recognition of his blood work for Britain and America.
Drew died on April 1, 1950, in Burlington, N.C., from injuries received in a car accident while on his way to a conference.

But contrary to some popular reports, he didn’t die because he was refused admittance at a nearby hospital or denied a transfusion. Instead, it was the result of his extensive injuries resulting from the crash.
In addition to the many honors accorded him for his work, Drew also became the namesake of a medical university founded in 1971 in Watts-Willowbrook, Calif., which was then the heart of a historic African American community.

Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU) is a private, nonprofit, nonsectarian, medical and health sciences institution that offers certificate, graduate and postgraduate programs.

The only dually-designated Historically Black Graduate Institution and Hispanic Serving Health Professions School in the U.S., CDU’s mission is to conduct education, research and clinical services in the context of community engagement to train health professionals who promote wellness, provide care with excellence and compassion, and transform the health of underserved communities.

Charles Drew University has established a tradition of excellence in research on conditions that disproportionately affect ethnically and culturally diverse communities and provision of the highest quality clinical and community services. CDU focuses on helping society’s poorest communities, starting in the neighborhood surrounding its home base in South Los Angeles.

Recently, the CDU/UCLA medical program was named “best performer” in the University of California system with respect to producing outstanding underrepresented minority physicians, according to the Greenlining Institute.
Additionally the university does the following:

> Confers degrees and certificates in three colleges: the College of Science and Health; the College of Medicine; and the Mervyn M. Dymally School of Nursing.

> Graduated more than 550 physicians, 2,300 physician assistants, 2,500 physician specialist and numerous other health professionals since its first student enrollment in 1971. The California Wellness Foundation reports that CDU has trained one-third of Los Angeles County’s minority physicians. One independent study concluded that 40 percent of the healthcare professionals in South Los Angeles are CDU trained.

> To address the growing demand for nurses who provide healthcare in South Los Angeles and similar communities across the nation and throughout the world, the Mervyn M. Dymally School of Nursing opened in August 2010. It is the first ever in South Los Angeles and the only one in the nation dedicated to reducing health inequities.
The school’s entry-level master of science in nursing program is designed for individuals from non-nursing backgrounds to pursue a graduate degree in nursing.

> Outranks one-third of U.S. medical schools in research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), despite being the smallest.

> Maintains an extensive educational pipeline program that prepares thousands of students (ages 4-18) in its Saturday Science Academy and other elementary-through-high school science programs to gain skills, knowledge and confidence to finish high school and succeed in college.

> Provides HIV/AIDS testing and education to the greater Los Angeles area with the Charles R. Drew mobile HIV testing and outreach programs.

CDU has a history of strong and consistent NIH-based research funding for basic, community-partnered, clinical and translational studies. The institution’s primary research focus includes cancer, cardio-metabolic and HIV/AIDS. In addition, it has very active research programs in diabetes, substance abuse and obesity. Its projects or centers also support original investigator initiated research through pilot projects; provide access to core facilities both at CDU and

UCLA; develop junior researchers across the university, which fosters an environment for faculty growth and expansion of the research areas as well as excellence in teaching and community service.

The research centers also provide excellent opportunities for students from all colleges and schools to participate in health disparities research. Many complete a research thesis at the end of their training.