Dr. Helen Octavia Dickens
On this day in 1909, Dr. Helen Octavia Dickens was born in Dayton Ohio. Dickens received her medical education from the University of Illinois in 1934. Following a residency at Chicago's Provident Hospital, she worked with Dr. Virginia Alexander at the Aspiranto Health Home in North Philadelphia where she developed and interest in obstetrics and gynecology. She pursued advanced training ob-gyn and became the first female African-American physician in Philadelphia to receive board certified in hers specialty in 1945. Five years later she was elected a fellow of the American College of Surgeons becoming the first African American woman to be so honored.
Dickens is one of several African-American physicians included in the National Library of Medicine's exhibit, "Changing the Face of Medicine." Currently the exhibit can be viewed at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. An online version is available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/
VCU Libraries will host the traveling version of "Changing the Face of Medicine" at some point in 2006.
--Jodi Koste, Archivist, MCV Campus.