Helen O. Dickens Sources

JEVS | Human Services

-Dr. Dickens was born in 1909. Her mother was a domestic servant, and her father had been a slave. Dr. Dickens was an excellent student, and her desire to help improve the lives of others led her to enroll in medical school at the University of Illinois. She graduated in 1933, the only black woman in her class. She worked for a time in Chicago and developed a special interest in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the branch of medicine that is devoted to the care of pregnant women. In 1935, she moved to Philadelphia to work in a clinic that served one of the city’s low-income black communities.

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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.

Perlman School of Medicine

-In 1935, Dickens came to Philadelphia to work with Virginia Alexander, MD(opens in a new window) in the Aspiranto Health Home, a six-bed hospital and clinic located in Alexander's North Philadelphia row home. Dickens moved into the home where Alexander's father also resided. The practice primarily served the city's poor Black community, which came to the clinic for general medical care, emergency visits, obstetric and gynecologic care, and parenting classes. Alexander and Dickens made house calls and did home deliveries. During at least one visit to a woman in labor, Dickens had to push a bed to the window for light, as the house did not have electricity.

-Dickens's life was in motion all around: Running a practice while caring for a baby while her husband was in Savannah attending to his own career. In 1948, she took another step, accepting the position of director of OB/GYN at the newly merged Mercy-Douglass Hospital. She established the hospital's OB/GYN residency program, creating training opportunities for Black physicians. Dickens soon joined the courtesy staff of Kensington Hospital, and Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia, as well. "You went where your patients wanted to go," she said, or where they needed to go - such as a prenatal clinic she ran in a North Philadelphia church. Dickens taught at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and Woman's Hospital, rising to department chief of OB/GYN in 1956. She also served on the executive team of Planned Parenthood Association of Philadelphia.

During those years, Dickens made her biggest mark in cancer prevention and education. Cancer had long been perceived primarily as a disease of White women, when in fact, Black women are more likely to die from breast or ovarian cancer. She worked to change that impression and used a community network of Black service organizations including Link, Inc., and her Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. contacts to reach the city's Black women through seminars held in churches. In a joint effort with the American Cancer Society of Philadelphia, and the National Institutes of Health, Dickens opened a cancer control clinic in Mercy-Douglass Hospital.

ACS | American College of Surgeons

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Dr. Dickens began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1965, starting as an instructor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology. Over the next 10 years she advanced through the ranks to be named a full professor in 1976 and professor emeritus in 1985.4 Early in her tenure, she also served as dean of the office for minority affairs at the University of Pennsylvania. In her first five years in that role, she greatly increased the enrollment numbers of minority medical students.

Dr. Dickens had several special interests throughout her historical career. In 1967, she founded the teen clinic at the University of Pennsylvania for school-age mothers in the inner city and went on to serve as director of the teen clinic and as an advocate for teen mothers throughout her career. She also initiated a project that brought temporary cancer detection facilities into Philadelphia’s inner city and implemented a project funded by the National Institutes of Health that encouraged doctors to perform Pap smears to test for cervical cancer in women.

Throughout her career, Dr. Dickens was a member of many professional societies, a board member for the American Cancer Society and Children’s Aid Society, among others, and a recipient of numerous awards. She was also the first African-American woman to be admitted into fellowship in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.5 Dr. Dickens had a long and influential career, advocating for her patients and helping to pave the way for female African-American surgeons to follow. She was married to Dr. Purvis Henderson, also a surgeon, and had two children.6

DMU Timestamp: February 26, 2025 22:37

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