School's First African American Graduate Honored 

Daniel Hale Williams, MD 1883, dedicated his life to improving health care for African Americans.

The 182-seat Daniel Hale Williams Auditorium was filled to overflowing as seven speakers took the stage to honor the facility's namesake during dedication ceremonies September 9.

Dr. Williams, who graduated from the medical school in 1883, was the school's first African American alumnus and faculty member and among the first to successfully perform surgery on the human heart. He devoted his life to improving health care and career opportunities in medicine and nursing for fellow African Americans. To that end, in 1891 he founded Chicago's Provident Hospital, the nation's first black-owned and operated medical institution, and helped found several other such hospitals across the country.

"Dr. Williams was a master surgeon, wonderful teacher, and in many ways one of the most accomplished leaders in American medicine at the turn of the 20th century," noted Dean Lewis Landsberg, MD, during opening remarks in the auditorium, located on the third floor of the McGaw Pavilion in the Health Sciences Building. "He was a leader in the broadest sense of the word. He brought real change for the better to the lives of the people around him and set a lasting example for many others. He is among the most illustrious of our alumni and deserving of a more prominent place in the school's historical record."

Marking the dedication of both the auditorium and adjacent Daniel Hale Williams Atrium, the event drew representatives from the National Medical Association and American College of Surgeons (ACS), both organizations that Williams helped found, as well as luminaries including John Johnson, founder of Johnson Publishing Company, the nation's largest black-owned publishing company. The Chicago-based company produces such publications as Ebony and Jet. Claude Organ, MD, president of the ACS and editor of the Archives of Surgery, gave the keynote address.

Naming the Auditorium

Raymond Curry, MD, GME '85, executive associate dean for education, recounted the genesis in 2001 of the idea to name the new facilities after Dr. Williams. Touched by an account of Dr. Williams' life and work, members of the Northwestern chapter of the Student National Medical Association (SNMA), which focuses on the needs of minority medical students, contacted Dr. Curry asking if the school could recognize Dr. Williams with a portrait, bust, or some other public display. Planning already was under way for a new auditorium to be used for educational purposes. Dr. Curry, also moved by the account of Dr. Williams' life, proposed that the auditorium be named after Dr. Williams. 

In the Daniel Hale Williams Atrium, attendees learn more about Dr. Williams' life and work.

"Dr. Williams exemplifies the professional dedication and mastery of his craft that we try to imbue in all our students. He was eager to learn throughout his life," noted Dr. Curry. "When, 10 years after graduation, the medical school started teaching the new subject of bacteriology, he took time from his busy practice to take the class alongside current students.

"He also was an inspiring teacher," continued Dr. Curry. "We have it on the authority of no less than Dr. Charles Mayo [of Mayo Clinic fame], who credited Dr. Williams, then serving as a surgical demonstrator on our faculty, as his first and perhaps most influential surgical mentor. Perhaps most important, as we think about what leadership means to the medical profession, he saw with clarity the needs of his community and had the ability and determination to effect change.

"Through Provident and a number of similar endeavors he inspired in more than a dozen major American cities, he made medical care accessible to a large segment of the population in an era when access to care had not even begun to enter into the mainstream public discourse." 

Dean Lewis Landsberg, MD (left), gets an insider's perspective on the creative process from sculptor Preston Jackson, who created the bust of Dr. Williams

Chris Wambi-Kiesse, MD '03, a urology resident at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, was among the SNMA members to recommend that Dr. Williams be honored and from the podium expressed his pride in Northwestern for such a fitting tribute to the educator. He was followed by Thomas Pitts, MD '76, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Feinberg School and clinical consultant to Provident Hospital of Cook County. Born in Provident Hospital, Dr. Pitts chairs the school's Daniel Hale Williams Initiative to raise scholarship funds to further enhance student diversity.

Dr. Curry credited Nicole Woods, director of the Office of Minority and Cultural Affairs, with making the auditorium a reality. "Nicole joined Northwestern after the auditorium had been designed and after the initial conception of the space. But it was all just a bunch of fancy ideas, and it took Nicole to make it real," he shared. "She immersed herself in the story of Dr. Williams, [conducting research at] the Provident Foundation's archives; finding the papers of Williams' biographer and Williams' original papers, and bringing back treasures such as copies of Williams' correspondence with Booker T. Washington; and vetting a number of potential artists [for the bust of Dr. Williams that adorns the atrium]. She worked tirelessly on all aspects of these events."

Dr. Williams' Beginnings

Woods traced Dr. Williams' life and career. Born in Pennsylvania in 1856, "Dr. Dan," as he was known to patients and friends, was the child of free parents of European, Native American, and black heritage. Woods told the audience, "Despite his look, which did not clearly declare him a member of any particular racial group, Dan was black. Throughout his life, and even decades after his death, some have viewed this as a choice he made. But Dan never entertained such an idea and never considered it a choice. He was a black man fully committed to the advancement of his people." 

Nicole Woods, director of the medical school's Office of Minority and Cultural Affairs, tells the audience about the early years of "Dr. Dan."

Apprenticed to a Baltimore shoemaker at age 11 after his father died of tuberculosis, the young Dan ran away a few months later to Rockford, Illinois, where his mother and sisters had moved to be with family. By age 17 he was running his own barbershop in southern Wisconsin. At age 22 he began an apprenticeship with noted Civil War surgeon Henry Palmer, MD, who also served as Wisconsin's surgeon general. In 1880 Williams began his medical training at what was then known as Chicago Medical College, later to become Northwestern University Medical School.

Graduating in 1883, Dr. Williams opened his first office at 3034 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Six years later he was appointed a member of the Illinois State Board of Health and in 1891 founded Provident Hospital. In 1894 Dr. Williams was appointed by President Grover Cleveland as surgeon-in-chief at Freedman's Hospital in Washington. He helped establish the Medico-Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia, an interracial professional organization, and the National Medical Association, the only professional organization of its day open to black physicians. Dr. Williams returned to Chicago in 1898.

Career in Surgery

Introduced by Ruby Skinner, MD, assistant professor of surgery at the Feinberg School, keynote speaker Dr. Organ added to Woods' account of Dr. Williams' life. "In Chicago his keen social awareness developed. There [early in his career] he was forced to operate in private homes because he had no hospital privileges," noted Dr. Organ, co-editor of the book, A Century of Black Surgeons. "Hospitals at that time were an exclusive club." 

In his keynote address, Dr. Claude Organ, president of the American College of Surgeons, honors fellow surgeon Dr. Williams.

Dr. Williams changed that by founding Provident Hospital. When celebrated black abolitionist and Williams' longtime friend Frederick Douglass spoke at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, he donated the proceeds from his lecture to Provident, shared Dr. Organ. Twenty years later, Dr. Williams was the first African American to become a fellow of the ACS. Said Dr. Organ, the college's current president, "It was quite remarkable that he was selected for fellowship in the ACS when you consider the mores of the time. The man must have been truly outstanding." Dr. Williams died in 1931 at age 75.

"Much has happened in the 75 years since Dr. Dan's death," commented Dr. Organ. "Many of the problems he worked on still exist today, but we're doing better. The good news is the appointment of black physicians to leadership positions, including Haile Debas, MD, as president of the American Surgical Association. I didn't think it would happen in my lifetime, but it did."

The bad news, he related, is the loss of accreditation at several institutions whose residency programs have historically trained a high percentage of black physicians. "We need these schools. We have a commitment to give these young people a first-class education. But they need the resources to do it," said Dr. Organ. "The current situation has been a wake-up call, and we're going to get another if we're not careful. Let's not let our guard down."