From 19th century medical students denied their degrees to today's surgeons, there are many Black clinicians with connections to Columbia University Irving Medical Center you should know.
The First Students
Until recently, VP&S recorded Travis Johnson, MD'1908, as the school's first African-American graduate. But research has shown that four others-John Brown, Washington Walter Davis, David Kearney McDonogh, and James Parker Barnett-attended between 1830 and 1850, establishing VP&S as one of the first medical schools in America to offer courses of study in medicine to men of African heritage.
They were not officially recognized as medical students, however, and were not granted MD degrees during their lifetimes. One of the students, John Brown, began a short-lived medical practice and was arguably the first professionally trained African-American physician in New York City, a credit usually given to Dr. James McCune Smith. McDonogh practiced medicine for decades in New York City; Davis returned to Liberia, where he was born, to establish a practice, and Barnett finished his medical studies at Dartmouth, which awarded him an MD in 1854.
Agnes Griffin, MD'23
During the 1920s there were fewer than 100 black women doctors in the country. In 1977, the New York Times interviewed a handful of those pioneering black women. Among them, Agnes Griffin, MD'23, the first black woman to earn an MD from VP&S, who told the Times she never felt particularly "determined or strong‐willed" but was "just doing what comes naturally."
