Information about Dr. Helen Octavia Dickens

The female physician who popularised the Pap smear

In 1951, a 31-year-old mother-of-five walked into Maryland’s Johns Hopkins Hospital for what she called “a knot on my womb”. The knot, it turned out, was a virulent cancer that had started in her cervix. She would soon die in agony of the disease, then the number one killer of American women.

The woman was Henrietta Lacks, who would one day become known for her unintended contribution to medical science. After her death, scientists would take her cancer cells and reproduce them into perpetuity without her family’s knowledge, using them to investigate diseases from Aids to polio.

Yet at the same time that Lacks’ tumour was growing, a gynaecologist named Helen Octavia Dickens was driving around Philadelphia in an American Cancer Society van, giving black women free Pap smears. She parked her van at local churches, and invited women to come inside for what she described as “a painless, simple, five-minute procedure”. Many times she found cancer and was able to operate, turning those patients into lifelong devotees.

Helen O. Dickens: Women's Health Pioneer with Philadelphia Connections - JEVS Human Services %

Learning and Leading

Dr. Dickens wanted to continue her education, so she enrolled in a master’s degree program at The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) School of Medicine. After graduating, she took on leadership roles in the Obstetrics and Gynecology departments at two Philadelphia hospitals. In 1965, she began teaching at Penn. Dr. Dickens was dedicated, talented, and driven to change medicine for the better, and her career included several “firsts.” She was the first black woman to become a full professor at Penn and the first black female physician in Philadelphia who became board-certified in Obstetrics & Gynecology. She was also the first black woman admitted to the American College of Surgeons. That meant her fellow physicians viewed her as one of the leading doctors in the country.

Advocating for Women’s Health

Dr. Dicken called for the use of pap smears to detect cervical cancer. She wanted black women to have access to this test, and she personally visited churches in Philadelphia’s black community and performed the test for free. Dr. Dickens’s belief in the pap smear, which was new at the time, had a strong influence on other physicians. Pap smears are credited with saving millions of lives.

Eventually Dr. Dickens rose to an important position at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She founded a clinic where pregnant teenagers and young mothers could receive treatment and get advice about reproductive health. She also increased minority enrollment in the School of Medicine by over 2000% in a few years.

How One Black Doctor Brought the Pap to the People | American Experience | PBS

First, though, she had to get beyond their historically well-earned distrust of gynecological treatment. The legacy of experimentation and forced sterilization of Black women made them wary of receiving care. “A lot of women are reluctant to get medical checkups that include pelvic exams,” she told the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin—which meant Dickens had to bring the test to them. She did so through clinics and workshops at Black churches; in later years, Dickens even provided free pap tests out of a mobile unit, parking an American Cancer Society van in church parking lots. Dickens also got the National Institutes of Health to fund a program to train other doctors to perform pap tests. “But she doesn't just stop there,” Shakir adds. “She also uses her work to provide statistics on Black women patients for the first time…She's really a forerunner. We take this for granted today because of the ways in which we use patient data.”

Dickens continued her crusade of improving Black women’s medical access in a variety of ways. After joining the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine in 1965, she pioneered a program for pregnant teens. And as the university’s dean for minority affairs, Dickens recruited other potential doctors from underserved communities, as she herself had once been.

DMU Timestamp: February 26, 2025 22:37

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