Interviewer: To the cloud, and now I’m recording. Well, hello Dr. Thompson. My name is Ra\u00fal Necochea from the UNC School of Medicine. I’m interviewing Dr. Charles Thompson, UNC School of Medicine Class of 1970 and today is Tuesday, February 1. It\u2019s 3:00 p.m. Hello and welcome, Dr. Thompson.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Thank you for inviting me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: It\u2019s our pleasure. To begin, let\u2019s talk a little bit about your origin story. Would you please tell us where you were born and when?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, near the Navy base during World War II, but I relocated. Our family moved back to Rocky Mount, North Carolina and I was reared in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. My date of birth is May 29, 1944.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Who did you grow up with?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I grew up with my father and my mother, but my parents divorced early and so I grew up primarily with my mother, my aunts, and uncles, and in Rocky Mount, North Carolina \u2013 my earlier memories. I grew up \u2013<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Go ahead.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Did you have any siblings?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes. I had three brothers \u2013 two brothers, I’m sorry, and one sister in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. I went to school there \u2013 elementary school, high school at Booker T. Washington High School \u2013 a segregated high school and was educated in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Actually, all my siblings were college grads. My mother and father were graduates of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina \u2013 the site of the first sit-ins. Jessie Jackson \u2013 when I was there \u2013 was president of the study body. The civil rights leader?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Which was very interesting \u2013 a very interesting background.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah, it sure is. So, all five of your siblings went to college? Well, all five of you?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yeah. We were four with three \u2013 two brothers, one sister, and, of course, myself. So, we all went to college and my parents were graduates of the North Carolina A&T, Agricultural and Technical College. They had an engineering school, but we all went to the same school. Most of us went to the same school. My brother went to, older brother, went to North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: What did your parents do for a living?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: My mother was a home economics teacher, but she subsequently worked as a lab technician in the health department of Edgecombe County and Nash County in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. My father was an Agricultural & Technical school grad, but he did mostly consultation with the Black farmers in North Carolina because \u2013 at that time \u2013 you could only, if you\u2019re Black, you could only consult with Black farmers advising them about plants, agriculture, farming. He was a farmer and his father was a farmer. In fact, my grandfather was a farmer. I’d actually visit my grandfather in the summers at his large farm in Mebane, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Really? In Mebane?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Mebane, North Carolina, yes.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: How do you remember \u2013 sorry, let me take one step back also. You said that in school you went to a segregated school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Was it segregated throughout your whole schooling years?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: It was certainly segregated in my high school. The high school subsequently closed and was integrated into the main White high school in Rocky Mount, but we had a large, educated population there of graduates of Fisk University, Howard University, North Carolina A&T. In fact, one of the teachers, science teacher, had gone to Meharry Medical College for a period of one or two years. So, they were very interested in science and education and were mentors \u2013 mentors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThey encouraged us to go to college. They said, \u201cYou\u2019re going to college. You can do that.\u201d So, even in a segregated environment, we had a lot of leadership \u2013 pastors, Boy Scoutmasters, teachers \u2013 teachers, especially teachers. It was a nourishing environment.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: That\u2019s great.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: And I personally had uncles. I had uncles too and they had gone to college. My uncle went to North Carolina A&T and one of my uncles left high school in the 10th grade or something like that, went to the Air Force, came back to finish college at \u2013 well, start college at Howard University \u2013 and subsequently went to UCLA and went to law school at UCLA and became dean of the Howard University School of Law. He was a judge. He became dean of the Howard University School of Law. He encouraged us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nHe encouraged us. He was a mentor. He said, \u201cYou can do it. I did it. You\u2019re smarter than I am.\u201d But we had a lot of encouragement from the males in the family and certainly the women in the family.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: That\u2019s great. That was gonna be my next question for you.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Oh, is that right? Okay, maybe I’m getting ahead of you.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: You already did. You already answered it \u2013 my question about who were the most influential people when you were little and young?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes. Well, certainly the pastor too \u2013 the pastor of the church \u2013 was well-educated. He was a community activist, but he encouraged people to read, study, and stay out of trouble. We did not have a TV when I was a kid. We had a library. So, we had books and we had mentors.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Did you know many physicians when you were little?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes, I did. In fact, my brother had glomerulonephritis. And he was under the care of a physician in Rocky Mount. My mother had hypertension. In fact, her mother \u2013 my grandmother \u2013 died early of a stroke, a massive stroke, at age 50. So, we were certainly encouraged to eat low salt and control our blood pressure, but at the time of my grandmother\u2019s passing, we did not have diuretics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nPeople forget that when diuretics were discovered, the incidence of heart failure, kidney failure, and stroke decreased dramatically especially in the Black and poor populations \u2013 not just Black population, but the White population of North Carolina. That was a significant development. We take it for granted these days.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Three physicians came to mind. One was a graduate of UNC Medical School \u2013 the two-year medical school \u2013 when UNC was a two-year medical school. Dr. Louis Thorp, T-H-O-R-P, and he went on to finish school at the University of Pennsylvania. The University of Pennsylvania I think that happened. He was my mother\u2019s physician \u2013 a very caring physician \u2013 although he saw her in a segregated office, I remember. But at the time \u2013 because of widespread segregation in the south \u2013 he didn\u2019t think anything of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnother physician was Dr. Parker. He was a young physician who died early in a single-car crash in Rocky Mount, which was unfortunate. And the third physician was Dr. Bryant, James Bryant, a US Army Captain in Korea \u2013 in the Korean War \u2013 who subsequently went to med school at Howard University and did a residency in family medicine and practiced in Rocky Mount for 20 plus years.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: So, those were the physicians that I thought \u2013 I looked up to, certainly. I wanted to be a physician since I was in elementary school and high school \u2013 well, certainly high school, certainly high school.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Where did that come from?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, my mom had hypertension. We had a family history of stroke. Every generation had hypertension. My brother had kidney disease \u2013 glomerulonephritis. My brother had kidney disease. My mother was always worried that she would die early like her mother, like her mother, and I told my mother I said, \u201cYour blood pressure is lower than mine. You\u2019ll live to be 96.\u201d She actually lived to be 94, but she was always concerned about hypertension and its adverse effect on relatives that she knew.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Right. As you were getting ready to finish high school, did you consider other options?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I didn\u2019t really consider other options because I always wanted to be a physician. Actually, my high school experience, that was a very interesting thing because my senior year in high school one of the science teachers told me about a STEM program at North Carolina A&T in Greensboro and a six-week program for high school students in math and in physics, chemistry, and biology. I was accepted into that program, which was a very enlightening experience. In fact, they offered me a scholarship.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Nice.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: They offered me a scholarship and I immediately accepted and went to enroll at North Carolina A&T, a freshman.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Tell me a little bit about being an Aggie.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, being an Aggie was fun. I was a student, but also in the band \u2013 the marching band.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, what did you play?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I played the baritone horn. I played the baritone horn, for two years. I tried out for this junior year, but we had so many science labs and so much work to do that I couldn\u2019t physically do that and get the grades I need to get to get into medical school. But it was a very interesting, enlightening experience, and \u2013 by the way \u2013 this was in the era of the Vietnam War. Yes, because I was enrolled in ROTC \u2013 Air Force ROTC \u2013 for two years, for two years, and First Lieutenants, Second Lieutenants who graduated from university in the Vietnam War were very likely to be injured.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThe Vietnam War was very powerful for us because it was a constant reminder of threats and the dangers in our society, but we also had a lot of opportunities. As I said before, it was the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement and Jessie Jackson was president of the study body. The Civil Rights leader you know about was president of the student body when I was there and that was before. I arrived I think maybe a year or two after the sit-in in Greensboro. But the point is that there were a lot of things going on and we had to be mindful because if you didn\u2019t make it in college, the next thing you know you were being drafted to Vietnam.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: So, you went to A&T from what year to what year?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: From 1962 to 1966.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Got it. How did you finance your college education?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I had some savings. I used to be a paperboy in Rocky Mount and we had a savings account. I got a scholarship from North Carolina A&T and I had federal loans \u2013 so those three sources of financing.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Can you tell me a little bit about people who helped you when you were at A&T to find your way into medicine?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Oh, okay. Well, as I say, I was always interested in medicine, but it was the influence of the head of the Department of Biology \u2013 primarily the head of the Department of Biology. I told him about my desires and my goals in life and he encouraged me to achieve my goals. But we did get a new assistant head of the department because at the time biology was more anatomy \u2013 anatomy of animals, anatomy of \u2013 and human anatomy too \u2013 but the biochemistry, the newer aspect of biology that you would need to be successful in med school \u2013 we recruited \u2013 he recruited a new PhD I think from either Iowa State or Ohio University. I’m not sure which one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wait, which one was the other one besides Howard?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I thought he came from Ohio State. He was a black PhD from Ohio State or Ohio University, but he was very influential.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Were there other premeds such as yourself at A&T?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes, there were other pre-med students, yes.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Do you remember how many of you there were?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I thought there were at least 10 because there were programs to prepare you to be a teacher of biology and chemistry and then there were programs to prepare you to go to medical school or research in biology. So, there were two tracks.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: When you were preparing at A&T and getting your degree, do you remember this cohort of premeds being something of a reference group, a helpful resource, people that you stayed in touch with afterwards?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, in my group I thought I was the only one who actually went to medical school. Some of the people became teachers, principals, principals, leaders in education. In fact, one of my roommates \u2013 my roommate, my best roommate \u2013 became the principal of a high school in High Point, North Carolina. He never thought he would be a leader in education. He thought he would just be a little science teacher and found that he really loved the students, saw their potential, saw their potential, saw their problems too. And he became a devoted principal in High Point, North Carolina next to Greensboro, as you know.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: You\u2019re probably familiar with \u2013 you\u2019re very familiar with North Carolina I know because you\u2019re a professor.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: I’m here. Yeah, I’ve been here 11 years now.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Tell me why did you apply to the UNC School of Medicine?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, actually, I applied to three schools I thought. I was accepted immediately by Meharry and I sent them $1,000 to confirm the acceptance and I got a call from UNC Chapel Hill and they accepted me and I asked Meharry for the $1,000 back and they didn\u2019t return it. But it\u2019s very interesting I was talking to one of the captains in the Air Force ROTC that I knew, and he said \u2013 I told him which schools I was accepted at and he said, \u201cI think you should accept Meharry\u201d and I told him, \u201cThank you\u201d and left the office.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd I don’t know why he said that, but he did say that, which was very interesting because as I said before, it was during the Civil Rights Movement and people thought they could achieve anything that was possible. At least that\u2019s what we were told by the student president and the leaders of the movement. So, it was surprising that someone who was a Captain in the Air Force \u2013 who had been stationed overseas \u2013 would tell a student that, \u201cYou\u2019ll do better at Meharry\u201d as opposed to staying in his own state of North Carolina in beautiful Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Did that tell you perhaps a little something about the reputation that UNC School of Medicine had?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, I didn\u2019t ask him that because, number 1, I thought that I wasn\u2019t gonna accept his advice anyway and I thought it was better to be diplomatic and move on. But I did know and I was told by someone I’m not sure that UNC would accept one student per year, but so did NYU and Columbia, one or two students per year, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I knew physicians who went overseas and got their medical degree in Sweden, France, and came back to New York to do internship residency, residency \u2013 internship and residency \u2013 in things like radiology and fellowships in radiology because there was a program to send Black medical students overseas to get their medical education. The reason I mentioned New York is that I had two uncles and one aunt in New York City, and I worked in New York City during my summers in college.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo, I experienced a different kind of situation in New York City as opposed to Greensboro. Greensboro was segregated at the time I went to school there. New York City was integrated, but the neighborhoods basically I thought were segregated, yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: The neighborhoods were segregated.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yes. Yeah, it\u2019s \u2013<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: But not completely segregated.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: I want to go back through that \u2013 to what you said about how something can be formally integrated, but not really be integrated in everyday life. And also to this point you raised earlier, I’ve heard from others \u2013 from the classes of the 1960s and the 1970s \u2013 that yeah, UNC would admit one Black student per year or one every couple of years and that was more or less the status quo for several years in the \u201870s. I’ve heard that before. Thank you for reminding me. And another question, tell me a little bit about what the process was like at the time to apply to UNC School of Medicine.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: What was the process like?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, I applied. I got recommendations from the professors \u2013 especially the chair of the Department of Biology \u2013 and I think the chemistry department because I was a biology major and a chemistry minor and I was immediately accepted. I think I went for an interview. Meharry, I did not go for an interview, but I was accepted at Meharry on the recommendation of the chairman of the department. He knew people at Meharry.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: That\u2019s very nice. $1,000 though, that was some money.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: That was a lot of money. That was a lot of money in 1966. I put it on my credit card.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, man. Yeah, that was \u2013<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I remember I sent them a check. I sent them a check, but I had put the money into my account.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: That\u2019s a good story. Did you have the option of attending another medical school besides Meharry?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I thought I applied at Howard, but I’m not sure because, as I said, I got the acceptance from Meharry fairly quickly, and then three weeks later I thought I got the call from UNC and I said, \u201cOh, I want to go to UNC. Why not go to UNC? The hospitals are there. I’m a resident of the State of North Carolina,\u201d and I was told that they had excellent facilities and it was no longer a two-year medical school, it was a four-year medical school.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Exactly.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: And as I said before, the family physician in Rocky Mount, Dr. Thorpe, my mother told him about my acceptance and he said, \u201cGo. It\u2019s a good school.\u201d He did an internship there after finishing at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Mm-hmm. Taking notes about that. Okay. so, now you are at the UNC School of Medicine. Can you tell me a little bit about your time over here? What was it like to be one of the few Black people in your class, for example?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, we had an interesting class \u2013 one Black student, but we had the first Indian American medical student, who was Subir Roy, R-O-Y. We had the first Chinese American student, Bruce Chang, who I knew. And we had I think four women and probably people of multiple religious affiliations. I think we may have had five Jews, but it was very difficult to tell who was Jewish and who\u2019s not. Of course, Presbyterians and lots of Baptists, but because we had \u2013 I wasn\u2019t the only person of color in our class and I think our class was more diverse at that time than the previous classes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI was told that another Black student was accepted but went to another school. I thought it was Duke, but I wasn\u2019t privy to that information, but I was happy to be accepted and the class was friendly. The professors were friendly and very cooperative and good teachers \u2013 excellent teachers. They were rewarded for teaching excellence. So, I thought it was a very good experience. You have to remember this is 1966 to \u201970 during the Vietnam War and I mentioned the Vietnam War because if you\u2019re thinking about any problems you have, you\u2019d have to look at what happened to other people. My high school classmate was killed in Vietnam.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nMy brother\u2019s high school classmate \u2013 who was a medic in the Navy but assigned to a Marine battalion \u2013 was killed in Vietnam. We had people at North Carolina A&T who finished ROTC training who got Second Lieutenant commissions wounded in Vietnam and it was terrible. The Civil Rights Movement in 1968 you have to remember we had the Tet Offensive. We were in med school, but we knew what was happening in the world. It was not isolated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nMartin Luther King was killed in 1968. And I think Robert Kennedy was killed in 1968 and the Tet Offensive wounded a lot of soldiers, sailors, and Marines \u2013 but mostly soldiers and Marines \u2013 in Vietnam in 1968. I remember that decisively. And of course, there was protests on the streets \u2013 on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill \u2013 concerning the Vietnam War. I think Martin Luther King also opposed Vietnam before he was assassinated. So, I was thinking about med school and working hard, working in groups, making friends, but it was a very enjoyable experience for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI also met some other students in some of the lower classes. In fact, my roommate was a medical student I think one or two years behind me, but he was my roommate and he was \u2013 His name was Charles Harshaw, Jr. He was a graduate of UNC and was the first Black resident fellow in cardiology at UNC. He subsequently was a cardiologist at Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro. In fact, at one time he asked me to come back to Greensboro to practice medicine with him, but I declined. And unfortunately, he died early. He may have died at age 55 or 60 in Greensboro, but \u2013<\/p>\n
\nMay his memory be a blessing because he was a very good student and I think many of his students probably don\u2019t know that he was the first cardiology fellow at UNC, I think with Dr. Craig. I think Ernest Craig was the Chief of Cardiology at that time. In fact, I’m sure he was.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Can you spell his name, Dr. Hasher?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: H-A-R-H-H \u2013 S. H-A-R-S-H-A-W. Charles is his first name.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer:H-A-R-S-H-E-R?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: A-R-S-H-A-W. H-A-R-S-H-A-W. I think the alumni probably didn\u2019t give you his name because he\u2019s passed. He passed away.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yes, that\u2019s correct. And then you told me that even though he wasn\u2019t on that list, it would be very important to think about him and all he did, and possibly he has some descendants.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: He has descendants. I don’t think any of his children went to med school. I did not see that. In fact, they did not go to med school.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Who were you closest to here in medical school \u2013 besides, obviously, Dr. Harshaw \u2013 faculty, students, admin?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I think I was closer to the students I worked within groups. Rick and Christine Suberman, S-U-B-E-R-M-A-N, the anatomy class, Bruce Chang, Subir Roy. Actually, they made an effort to introduce themselves to me and there was another, John Zirkle, Z-I-R-K-L-E, Z-I-R-K-L-E, and Gene Sherman, G-E-N-E, Eugene Sherman, S-H-E-R-M-A-N. I’m pretty sure that\u2019s his name and Steve Green. Steve Green actually \u2013 believe it or not \u2013 came to my house in New Rochelle. I happened to move into his neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nHe was from New Rochelle, New York. He knocks on the door and said, \u201cI’m Steve Green. Welcome to the neighborhood.\u201d And by the way, our neighborhood was the epicenter of the coronavirus in Westchester County.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, really?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: We had a lot of cases, but fewer deaths. The outbreak was at the synagogue, which is 15 blocks from my house in New Rochelle, New York in 2020. But he had come to my house earlier visiting his relatives in New Rochelle. It was very interesting.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: That must have been pretty scary to be \u2013<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, no. You know what it is is that we had a lot of people \u2013 we did have some people die. Some of my friends died. Some of my friends died. So, one of my friends died. She was a mental health counselor in Malvern, New York, which is next door to New Rochelle and her boyfriend was a Black psychologist. He died two weeks after she died and one of my friend\u2019s parents. Both parents had COVID-19 symptoms. Mom did very well and the father passed away, unfortunately. But we know of the higher death rate among men and diabetics in this epidemic. In fact, the epidemic shows \u2013 revealed the disparity in health and health outcomes in Black and Hispanic and White communities.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah \u2013 I was just at a talk with a colleague from the University of Houston who was talking about that tight link between diabetes and COVID \u2013 death rates for people who have both. Yeah, it\u2019s exactly like you said. I forgot to ask you just a couple of quick questions from a few years back. I forgot to ask you about how many people were there in your class in medical school?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Oh, in fact, I have a picture of the medical school \u2013<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, awesome.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I have a picture of that I got from my library.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: That\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes. I think I’m here. I think I’m here.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, yes, there you are!<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I’m here. So, I could count them for you. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven \u2013 I think we had about 60 people.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Subsequent medical classes were expanded to include I think 10 Black students, with a federal grant so no White students were denied. No places were taken, I should say, but I think they had a federal grant to do that.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow. And the other question that I wanted to ask you also from a few years before is about the interview process for UNC School of Medicine. Do you remember anything about what that interview was like?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: You know I don\u2019t remember a lot about it. I thought there was an interview. Certainly, there was a recommendation. There was an interview. It may have been with a physician who was a graduate of UNC Medical School. I don’t remember a lot about the interview process. I do remember that I subsequently went to New York City for an interview with the National Medical Science Foundation. They offered me a scholarship and asked me which university am I choosing and I said, \u201cI’m gonna choose the university in the state where I live, North Carolina, but I appreciate the acceptance from Meharry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Of course. Now moving forward then, you\u2019re at UNC in the School of Medicine and this new class that includes one Chinese American, women, an Indian American. Do you recall facing any hardships as a medical student?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, I thought I was accepted. I was a friendly person \u2013 not as extrovert as some of the other people. As I said before, I felt fortunate. I was drafted my first month in med school so that also \u2013 and I got a deferment in the Berry Plan for four years, right?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: And so I was called up to the dean\u2019s office my first month of med school and I said, \u201cWhy am I here?\u201d because it\u2019s only been one month. But there were papers on the desk saying, \u201cYou can either go in as a draftee or you can sign these papers and be deferred for four years.\u201d So, I immediately signed the papers and went back to class. That was an easy decision.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Finish that degree and not go to Vietnam right away.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Right.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow. Can you tell me about a time when you asked for help as a medical student?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, yes. I asked the histology professor for help and he volunteered to help me. I think my problem was that I had an old microscope \u2013 a one-scope microscope, lens microscope \u2013 and that was a mistake. I should have had the classic newer scopes where you can see the entire field so you can get a better perspective of what you\u2019re looking at. And he was very helpful to me in that sense certainly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAlso, working in groups students were helpful. I didn\u2019t hesitate to ask people if they knew about this problem or did they have any information about that mainly because I thought it was a very friendly environment. And as I said before, I thought I was fortunate. I wasn\u2019t in Vietnam. I was studying medicine. I was in the lovely town of Chapel Hill and I thought I could do the work. At least I was told I could do the work by the professors at North Carolina A&T.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: That\u2019s good, and to come in and feel confident about your abilities and the fact that you can do the work. What was the hardest thing to do in the School of Medicine when it came to doing the work?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I think the hardest course I had was statistics.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Statistics.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes, yes. The person, I didn\u2019t think the person was a very good teacher, but I noticed that was the toughest medical school course I had and I’m not sure why it was, but it was tough for me.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: And what about the work?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: The actual work I enjoyed the work. I really enjoyed the work. It was exciting, it was new, it was physiology of humans instead of animals, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: And we had very good teachers. The teachers were rewarded for teaching. They were researchers too, but they were actually rewarded for teaching and you would have professors, for example. I remember when I was doing rotations in cardiology. I missed the rotation in clinical cardiology on the floor, but I got a rotation in the cardiac cath lab and so we had more interesting patients. We had more interesting patients who went to cardiac catheterization, the patients with rheumatic heart disease, right, the patients with coronary artery stenosis, the patients with heart failure and that informed my decision to subsequently do a fellowship in cardiology at Harlem Hospital Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI did a \u2013 I’m maybe getting ahead of myself but \u2013 but I did a straight medical internship and a medical residency at Harlem Hospital and I started on a fellowship in heart disease, cardiology, and I was thinking that\u2019s when they called me up two months into that fellowship and I had to report in three months and I think two months \u2013 maybe six weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo, I left that and went to South Korea, South Korea, where my uncle was captured in the Korean War and where my primary physician was a Captain in the Korean War \u2013 Dr. Bryant, the Black physician I was telling you about who went to Korea before he went to medical school and so I was there for a year in South Korea \u2013 the Republic of South Korea \u2013 at an Army base there 25 miles south of Seoul. And subsequently, I went to Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, near Seattle, Washington, Fort Lewis Military Base.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI was a physician in the emergency room there counseling medical students who were in the military \u2013 interns I should say \u2013 who were in the military, not students. That was very exciting for me, and also I was able to attend some cardiology conferences and other conferences at the Madigan Army Medical Center. It\u2019s now Joint Base.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: It\u2019s now a what?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: It\u2019s now Joint Base Fort Lewis and the Air Force base next to [inaudible] [00:41:00] joining together.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Right. Going back a few years when you were still in medical school, I’m curious about how you financed your education?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I received a National Medical Fellowship and I received a loan, government-based loan. So, I got a 50 percent National Medical Fellowship and I think 50 percent government loan, which I subsequently repaid.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Nice. That\u2019s great.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Over the next 10 to 15 years.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: It takes time. When you think about your time as a medical student, what kept you steady or at least not incredibly stressed out in pursuit of your degree? Were there friends and people, hobbies, sources of inspiration that helped you steady yourself?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, I had friends primarily in the medical school \u2013 not necessarily in the other grad schools \u2013 because I came from North Carolina A&T and people had already formed their fellowships. Even people who came from Davison, let\u2019s say, or the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill or from other universities \u2013 Wake Forest, for example. They had already formed. They seem to have already formed their fellowships and I lived on campus and they lived off-campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo, I studied primarily at the medical school while some people studied off-campus, but we did research and experiments in groups. So, you did form a friendship with the people you actually worked within those groups \u2013 whether it was anatomy class, for example, or physiology class. And, of course, I mentioned the professors. One professor in particular \u2013 well, Dr. Cray, I mentioned Dr. Cray \u2013 but the Scat, Dr. Scatliff,\u00a0 S-C-A-T-L-I-F-F, he was head of the Department of Radiology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yes.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: He actually spent time. He spent time with students \u2013 take a full week time with students to review radiology especially emergencies and things you would see in an emergency room. And when I was an intern at Harlem Hospital, I saw a lot of these things that he was talking about. This was a large, 20 story, new building affiliated with Columbia University School of Medicine. They brought the Bellevue Columbia division to Harlem Hospital in the new hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo, they brought Charles Ragan \u2013 who was head of medicine at Belleview, the Columbia Division \u2013 and subsequently became head of \u2013 Chief of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons at 168th Street in Manhattan. He subsequently recruited Dr. Gerald Thomson, T-H-O-M-S-O-N who was a nephrologist who was very interested in health care disparities and treatment of hypertension, diabetes, and of course, kidney failure. So, he established the first dialysis unit at Harlem Hospital \u2013 a large, urban hospital with no significant capabilities for doing dialysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nBut he was a Howard University graduate and did a fellowship, internship\/fellowship, downstate under one of the famous kidney nephrologists. And Dr. Ragan recruited him to Harlem Hospital and he became\u2013 when Ragan left two years later or three years later, Dr. Thomson became Chief of Medicine, professor of medicine, and Dr. Thomson \u2013 who was a very good mentor not only to Black students but to White students and Hispanic residents \u2013 and the community.<\/p>\n
\nBy the way \u2013 because he was politically active and he got funding for his dialysis unit \u2013 and more funding for the hospital and he was a major influence in our lives because he continued to talk about disparities between populations, health care, health disease, diseases, and access to health care from especially when comparing public hospitals \u2013 which Harlem Hospital was \u2013 to well-funded, private institutions like NYU, Cornell, and Columbia Presbyterian.<\/p>\n
\nI have to mention is Dr. Tyroler, Herman Tyroler.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Can you spell that?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: T-Y-R-O-L-E-R, Tyroler.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Tyroler.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Herman Tyroler. He was the epidemiology professor in the School of Public Health and also a New York City grad. I thought he graduated from NYU. I thought he graduated from NYU. And I got a summer fellowship with him in epidemiology. We talked about he was doing epidemiology with the Evans County Healthcare Study \u2013 Evans County, Georgia \u2013 the national study with disparities between health care between Blacks and Whites in Evans County rural Georgia?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: At which the School of Public Health was very involved in. And, of course, the sickle cell anemia study in Charleston County in the Sea Islands of South Carolina, the disparity and high death rate among sickle cell patients in hospital as compared to people in the community. So, he was<\/p>\n\n[00:47:31] he kept talking about disparities in health care and access to health care and what could be done to achieve that \u2013 to lower the disparity?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Right, yeah. Dr. Thompson, tell me about the transition to residency for you. You graduated in 1970. Did the process more or less, was it similar to now where you interview, then match, then choose?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, no. You simply asked for the residency and \u2013 if you perform well as an internship \u2013 you got it. It was a two-year residency in internal medicine, but a large urban hospital needs a lot of bodies. You have to be very strong and you had to be quick on your feet because many times at night you were the only person there. The attendings were home. It\u2019s not like today, but we did have second year \u2013 we had second-year internal medicine fellows and we had fellows in cardiology, pulmonary, kidney disease nephrology of course, and we had some attendings in the emergency room. So, the transition was fairly smooth, I thought.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: What attracted you to come up to New York?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, I had come to New York to visit my uncles. Half of my family was in New York. It was part of the great migration from south to north. Let me turn the phone off and I’ll be right back.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I better leave it on because I think that\u2019s a call for my wife, but I’ll speak louder. As I said before, half the family, my uncle \u2013 I had two uncles in New York. One was a principal and one was an engineer for Con Ed \u2013 Con Edison \u2013 and I had an aunt who brought her three children to \u2013 four children to New York. That was a big mistake, but my uncle was a teacher and a principal in the New York City school system. In fact, he got a master\u2019s degree at NYU, which he could not get in North Carolina.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, that\u2019s interesting. And you don\u2019t \u2013<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: My aunt also got her master\u2019s degree in teaching at NYU and they had a program that encouraged Black educators to come to New York to get their master\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: And you \u2013<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Go ahead.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: No, say that again, please?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I guess you would call that affirmative action. It\u2019s not negative action.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Right. And you already told me some about the experience of working in a large, urban hospital and some of the people who were there and supported you and some people who acted as mentors, those who were interested in things like health disparities already at the time. It sounds like a really wonderful environment.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: It was a wonderful environment. As I said before, I was used to New York because I worked here and I had relatives here. I came here in the summer to stay with my uncle, who was a principal \u2013 teacher\/principal \u2013 and I worked in New York to earn money to complete my education at North Carolina A&T and he didn\u2019t charge me for rent or food or anything like that, but his brother also did the same thing for him. He was passing it on.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Right, yeah. And when you were there as an intern \u2013 so that\u2019s one year and then you said you stayed one additional year?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Two years, two years.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: As a resident in medicine.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: In internal med, yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: And at the end of those two years, that\u2019s when you were drafted I remember.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I was beginning a fellowship in cardiology and I was drafted. I was called up.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: You were called up?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I was already in the Berry Plan. They sent me 15 pages of orders and \u2013 on page six \u2013 it says, \u201cReport within two months\u201d or something like that.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: So, I had to stop that and report.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: And that was how you ended up in Korea?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: That\u2019s how. I wanted to go to Germany and my second choice was Hawaii and they wanted five years to go to Germany or four or five years to go to Hawaii and I said, \u201cI can only give you two years\u201d and I was single. So, they gave the single guys Korea. But I wasn\u2019t up there at the border \u2013 at the DMZ \u2013 with the North Koreans. That was 20 miles away. So, I stopped complaining after a month because the physicians up there had to stay up there during the weekends.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: What did you do in Korea?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, I was the medical officer for a battalion, for a CAP. We call it a CAP, 25 miles south of Seoul. I was a Captain initially and working under a Major and I was promoted to Major my first year in South Korea and then I was in charge of that medical office, medical battalion.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: I’m sorry. I’m a little confused because were you still a trainee at the time or were you \u2013<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: No, no. I had finished a two-year residency in medicine. I had an internship, you know internship, and additional so I had three years of training and I had a New York medical license, and I had a lot of experience in emergencies at Harlem Hospital, which I didn\u2019t get at UNC, because we had drug overdoses. We had gunshots. We had trauma. We had diabetic ketoacidosis, you name it. UNC was more a referral hospital from other hospitals in North Carolina. UNC had very good teacher, mentors.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah. Was there a special moment or event when you felt you came into your own as a medical professional?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I did. I thought it was in the military because the things we saw in the military I had seen at Harlem Hospital or UNC. The only thing I did not have was a lot of surgical experience and, in retrospect, I wish I had done some more rotations as an intern in surgery. I did rotate through surgery at UNC. In fact, I remember a case with Dr. Wilcox. I think he was head of surgery, cardiovascular surgery, and he was doing a complex operation, but the students were allowed to be in the room and look and watch and observe, but also his \u2013 Wilcox\u2019s mentor who was from New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI think he was from either NYU or downstate. He was Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery before Wilcox took over. He would fly to small hospitals in North Carolina on a Piper and take students with him and care for patients who needed excision, for example, of a tuberculous lobe or things like that, where tuberculosis had destroyed half of the lungs and it was very difficult to treat the infection and he would fly students there and go over the case with them. It was very interesting. Of course, I forgot his name. I should never have forgotten his name.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: You stayed in Korea only one year?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: One year, yes.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Not the two years you had planned originally?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, no. I stayed in Korea one year and then I got a better assignment the second year at Madigan Army Medical Center.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Thank you for that reminder. Can you spell Madigan for me, please?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: M-A-D-I-G-A-N.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: A-N, Air Force Base \u2013 an air force base?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: An Army base with an Air Force base attached.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Got it. And that was in Washington state?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: That was in Tacoma. Washington state, yes, right near Seattle, Washington.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Why did you go there?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, I was assigned there and as I said before because I accepted the assignment in Korea, you get a better assignment the second year. Now Korea was very interesting. Korea was very interesting. I was a physician for a Korean orphanage.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, really?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yeah, pediatrics. I had to review my pediatrics. My sergeant took me to a Korean orphanage just because the base was sponsoring health care at a Korean orphanage.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow. That is fascinating.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: It is fascinating, yes. In fact, I referred a Korean \u2013 we had a Korean doctor at our base and he asked me. One of the surgeons \u2013 a cardiac thoracic surgeon \u2013 asked me to look for patients who needed surgery. These were patients with rheumatic heart disease, rheumatic valve disease, and one of my \u2013 my Korean doctor asked me to see a patient who had severe mitral stenosis, severe mitral stenosis, classic mitral stenosis and I examined the patient, called the surgeon up and he said, \u201cSend the patient up. We\u2019ll take care of it. No charge.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAnd they opened up his mitral valve and relieved his symptoms. The mother was so gracious that she gave me a Korean gift and, unfortunately, I had to refuse it because you were not supposed to accept gifts from Koreans, right? But my Korean doctor friend said, \u201cYou must accept it. In our culture, you can\u2019t refuse those kinds of gifts.\u201d So, I accepted it.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: What was it?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: It was a Korean gift that showed that changed color in the light. It was almost like a \u2013 and it showed a Korean in a native dress.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Cool.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: It was very \u2013 I have it somewhere in my attic. I don’t know what I did with it. I did keep it.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: That\u2019s amazing. And then you came back and you were here at Madigan for one more year?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I was at Madigan for one year. So, I was two years in the service and I think maybe six years in the Reserve.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: And how long have you now been living in New York state?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I have been living in New York State since certainly 1979, 19 \u2013 I’m sorry, 1975. Actually, I’ve been in New York State longer than I’d been in North Carolina. In fact, my high school class said I picked up a New York accent.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, that\u2019s not good, Dr. Thompson.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: That\u2019s not good. That\u2019s not good. But I’ve been living in New York State certainly 30, 40, almost 50 years.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, really?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: On and off for 50 years, but I did live in New Jersey. I used to work in New Jersey. In fact, you\u2019ll probably ask me the question what did I do subsequently when I finished my cardiology fellowship in \u201976 I think it was. I got an offer after Madigan Army Medical Center to work for eight months at Bristol Myers Squibb headquarters \u2013 the pharmaceutical company in New York City?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: For about eight months or so in between completion of the military service and the start of my cardiology fellowship at Harlem Hospital. And I was interviewed there by a Dr. Allen Garb, G-A-R-B, also a New Yorker. And I worked there for nine months, did my cardiology fellowship, and he actually called me asking me to return and I said, \u201cOh, I’ll come back for four years or so\u201d and 20 years later, I’m still there. But I was in New York City at their headquarters and then in Princeton, New Jersey at a research facility, and Wallingford, Connecticut at another research facility. But I always lived in New Rochelle, New York.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: I did not realize that a lot of your career had involved research in pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: It wasn\u2019t research. I actually was involved in OSHA rules and regulations. We had factories and we had to \u2013 and we also did research with animals \u2013 especially monkeys \u2013 monkeys. I had to learn about diseases monkeys can transmit to humans \u2013 Herpes B virus, which a lot of people don\u2019t know about. But in those days, we had one researcher who died of Herpes B virus a year because he thought he had classic herpes and didn\u2019t report that he was bitten by a monkey that he was doing research on, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nBut OSHA evaluated our factories. I had to learn occupational medicine. We also did stress testing. We did echocardiograms and we did \u2013 had an internal medicine office there in the headquarters and in the research facilities. So, employees expected a lot more than just occupational health and safety.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: I see. So, you were one of the doctors for the company?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Got it.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes. But we also did disabilities and we had some emergencies.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: But they wanted someone who could read EKGs, do echoes, and take them to another level.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah. You\u2019re the first doc that I have interviewed for this project who had a long career working in private industry.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes, I did. But the other thing I did I was also vice chairman of a pediatric clinic in a black neighborhood in Trenton, New Jersey. We established a clinic with the help of a father, Catholic father, in the neighborhood who was doing community service and was an activist, but he saw the need for a pediatric clinic. I took the place of a Bristol Myers Squibb executive who was on the board there. We finally sold the clinic for a dollar to St. Francis Hospital, which allowed them to complete their community service obligations and allowed them to establish a cardiac surgery unit.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow, that\u2019s wonderful. I was gonna ask you maybe this is related. If you look back at your long career, of what are you proudest?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, I’m proudest of my service to the community. I’m proud of my military service too because \u2013 as I said before \u2013 my uncle was captured in South Korea and the Black soldiers were very happy to see a Black physician. I’m proud of my contributions, my studies at Harlem Hospital, and I’m also proud of my affiliation with Dr. Gerald Thomson and Herman Tyroler who discussed disparities in health care. At the time, Tyroler was more interested in the Black\/White dichotomy in the south, but Gerald Thomson was interested in not only the Black\/White disparity, but the Hispanic disparity too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nTo get off the subject, I am also a member of what\u2019s called the Westchester Clubmen \u2013 a group of 20, 22, or 23, 25 Black and one Hispanic professionals. We mentor high school students and middle school students, but we talk about jobs and our experiences, and where we came from. On Wall Street, some of the guys are on Wall Street, and we have physicians.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nWe had one surgeon and one urologist and one cardiologist and a lot of Wall Street guys, some involved in Lehman Brothers \u2013 that bankruptcy of 2008 \u2013 I thought it was. And we\u2019re telling the kids about where we came from and that they\u2019re not too much different from who we are \u2013 who we were. They can achieve what we achieve. But their mothers are very happy that we\u2019re mentoring them. We take them to Knicks games, the Metropolitan Museum of History, right?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: The historical museum. We take them to McDonald\u2019s and we take them to dinner and we have scholarships and computers for them when they graduate from high school. But these are Black and Hispanic youth. Initially, it was Black youth and we expanded 15 years ago to Hispanic. Hispanics are the largest minority certainly in the northeast.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah, I think we\u2019ve been growing a lot.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Yes, a lot, a lot.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Back in I think early in the 1990s here just in North Carolina \u2013 I wasn\u2019t living here yet but \u2013 we were not more than one percent of the population and now we\u2019re close to 10 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: I read a stat that \u2013 in rural North Carolina \u2013 the fastest growing population is the Hispanic population. In fact, UNC said something like the language of the ICU is Spanish because they wanted to communicate with the COVID patients, right?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: But it\u2019s the changing demographics in the country, medical and demographics, yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: But also \u2013 as I mentioned with Dr. Gerald Thomson \u2013 he encouraged people to be politically active and he kept mentioning disparities, disparities, disparities, but he also mentioned it to all of the residents and the attendings and the politicians because you need money to solve any problems, you know?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: This last question that I want to ask you dovetails with what you just said and the question is what have all these different experiences taught you about the best ways that we can support present-day minority students and communities? I quite understand you\u2019ve been speaking up about disparities is one of those ways from what you\u2019re saying.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Well, Dr. Gerald Thomson told us we must be mentors. We must encourage students, minority students especially, but also White students too because there\u2019s a White poor population in the US that people, for example, sometimes forget. It\u2019s not just Blacks and Hispanics, but also White students. So, we must be concerned about health care for all groups, but you need money to solve these problems. I think the Hope Recovery Act showed that, in order to solve the problem of joblessness, you need money to solve that problem, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nLittle New Rochelle got $13 million from the Hope Recovery Act \u2013 $13 million. Mount Vernon \u2013 a predominantly Black town I think 60 or 70 percent \u2013 got $14 million and they were able to help their people with the funds. So, you need funds. You need to be politically active. You need to know what the problem is. You need to know the scope of the problem \u2013 which is epidemiology \u2013 but you need funds to solve the disparity problem and we\u2019re still experiencing that. So, we have to be mentors. We have to be activists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nWe have to connect with politicians because that\u2019s where the money is. I was talking to a politician the other day and I said something. I think she\u2019s now the Senate chairman \u2013 New York State senate chairman. Her name is Cousin and I said, \u201cYou know us physicians we have to be concerned about the prison population.\u201d New York City wants to build four new prisons in four boroughs and close Riker\u2019s out at the cost of $7.8 billion, with a B, right?<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: And I said, \u201cI’m not a politician, but the money for prisons comes from the budget of the poor. We build those prisons, we\u2019re not gonna be able to take care of the health care problems in minority neighborhoods \u2013 Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. And she said something to the effect that, \u201cWell, the budget for the prisons is a separate budget.\u201d I said, \u201cI know that but \u2013 if we spend the money \u2013 we\u2019re not gonna have money left over to spend for health care.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI said, \u201cYou\u2019re gonna have to build at least one prison because you\u2019ve promised that, but don\u2019t build the other four because the people in Harlem don\u2019t want a prison. The people in Queens don\u2019t want a prison. They want apartments. They want help with evictions. They want help with affordable housing and health care, right, and jobs, and education for their children. But she was a little surprised that I kept talking about prisons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI said, \u201cPhysicians have to be concerned about deaths because \u2013 whether you die of a gunshot wound at Harlem Hospital emergency room or you die of kidney failure or you die of a heart attack that could have been prevented \u2013 death is medicine and we have to prevent early premature death. So we have to be concerned about that and act appropriately, but it takes money to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: Physicians have to be advocates \u2013 especially people who were mentored and got to where they were, where they are in life. I’m retired, but I had a lot of mentors. I had a lot of mentors and I encourage students to be advocates. \u201cYou were prepared. You were accepted as medical students. They know what they\u2019re doing when they accepted you. You belong. Be active, work hard, and bring someone else along with you. Mentor people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: That\u2019s wonderful, Dr. Thompson. I think we need to wrap up on that note.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: A better way is contribute to the foundations whether you do $100 a year or $1,000 a year. Fortunately, I’m able to match my donation with the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation. Whether I give a grant to the organization I’m with or to the medical school directly or to another, for example, the Southern Poverty Law Center or the University of North Carolina A&T. That grant is matched. So, my donations are matched, but other people have to donate. There are no excuses for not donating, not being active, and not encouraging other people to follow your example. In fact, I have to tell you this. My daughter is now an attending physician at MedStar Washington Hospital in emergency medicine.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: She\u2019s a graduate of Columbia where she did a residency at Columbia in New York \u2013 Cornell, Cornell, Weil Cornell \u2013 because they\u2019re now New York Presbyterian Hospital. She did a four-year residency and is an attending physician there.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: Wow, congratulations to her.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewee: She decided on her own to become a physician because she didn\u2019t see me a lot of the times. I was either working or coming home late at night, but you have to mentor people \u2013 encourage them \u2013 because they\u2019re smarter than you are and certainly they can do the work. If you did the job, they can do the work because they\u2019re smarter than we are. Their parents are. I should say their parents are.<\/p>\n
\nInterviewer: They\u2019re smarter than I am. They are really well put together these medical students that I teach these days. I’m very impressed by them. Thank you, Dr. Thompson. This was wonderful and this hour and a half has gone by just like that. I’m gonna stop this recording.
\n\u00a0
\n[End of Audio]\n
\nDuration: 75 minutes<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"