Helen O. Dickens oral history, part of the Multimedia Educational Technology Services Records

007_Dickens_1

Transcript

Interviewer 00:02

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Speaker 2 00:17

Dr. Dickens, if you could count to ten, I'll do an audio check.

Dr. Dickens 00:20

Okay, one, two, three, four, five, okay.

Speaker 2 00:32

We should record the day, right, it's a rainy day and it's half snowing and half raining. I welcome you to this project.

First of all, the format is that I am not going to be appearing at all in the project. My voice is not going to appear. It's going to be like you talking to an audience, really, about your experiences at Penn. Whenever you want to stop, we can stop. Whenever you want to restart, you can do that. So be very freaky, it's very casual. The only difference is that we're having, we have something pointing at you. But it's like if I first come in here and I'm very cool just to know how.

Dr. Dickens 01:14

so I can stop. I don't have to signal when I want to stop.

Speaker 2 01:19

It's a different type of a project, so we begin by saying when did you come to the University of Pennsylvania?

Dr. Dickens 01:32

In 1954, I would think, it was when the old woman's hospital closed and Penn took over the woman's hospital. I was on their staff and I came to Penn. They took five, I think, members of the staff of the old woman's hospital at Preston & Parrish, and it became the women's division, I think, of the University of Pennsylvania, and I came at that time.

Speaker 2 02:00

So when you first came in, you did not come to the School of Medicine. Where did you come? What was the first department?

Dr. Dickens 02:07

Well, I came to the obstetrics and gynecology. That was not my first contact with Penn, but that was my first contact as being on the faculty or staff.

Speaker 2 02:22

what faculty, what schools.

Dr. Dickens 02:24

School of Medicine and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Speaker 2 02:29

And what was your first contact with Ben?

Dr. Dickens 02:32

First contact with Penn was as a student, as a graduate student, in the Graduate School of Medicine. At that time, Penn had a Graduate School of Medicine, and that was my first contact as a student in the Graduate School of Medicine.

Speaker 2 02:51

And why, how come did you come to the Graduate School of Medicine, from where did you come?

Dr. Dickens 02:56

I was in Philadelphia and I was in private practice, and I was doing general practice, family medicine they call it now, but I wanted to do obstetrics and gynecology, so I came back here to get more basic training, and I spent a basic year here in which I got a master's of medical science from our graduate school here.

Speaker 2 03:24

Can you tell us a little bit about your experience before you went to graduate school, what sort of work you used to do?

Dr. Dickens 03:31

Well, I was doing general practice, making home visits and doing deliveries, some at home and some in what we would now call a birthing home, I think.

Speaker 2 03:49

What section of the other

Dr. Dickens 03:51

in North Philadelphia on Jefferson Street.

Speaker 2 03:55

Before coming to see La Delcea, where were you?

Dr. Dickens 04:00

Before coming to Philadelphia, I was in Chicago. I went to the University of Illinois School of Medicine in Chicago.

Speaker 2 04:12

What makes...

Dr. Dickens 04:13

I interned also in Chicago at the Providence Hospital there.

Speaker 2 04:21

Why did you choose the field of medicine? You always wanted to be a doctor?

Dr. Dickens 04:28

My father wanted me to be a nurse and he died when I was eight years old, but my mother kept the same idea that somewhere along the line I decided that if I were going to be a nurse I might just as well become a doctor so that I then never turned back. I continued work that would lead me into medicine.

Speaker 2 04:58

Do you have any problem in applying to the medical school? Oh, sure. That is all this problem.

Dr. Dickens 05:05

A certain number of medical schools did not take women, a certain number of medical schools did not take blacks, and a certain number of medical schools were too expensive.

Speaker 2 05:21

So how do you arrive to be accepted in the University of Illinois?

Dr. Dickens 05:25

Well, I went to college in Chicago at City College, which is now, I think, called the Malcolm X. It was then called Crane Junior College. It was a junior college. It was like our community colleges.

And so that I was already in Illinois and I was eligible as a state student, which was much cheaper than going to the University of Chicago, for instance. And by the way, at that time tuition was $165 a semester.

Speaker 2 06:03

Where was that? The year?

Dr. Dickens 06:05

The year was 19 and I graduated high school.

Speaker 2 06:19

Twenty-nine, I guess.

Dr. Dickens 06:20

I guess that would have been.

Speaker 2 06:22

Do you have a nice experience in the University of Illinois?

Dr. Dickens 06:27

It was the usual experience, I guess. There were 175 in my class and five were women and five were minorities. They graduated three women and three minorities.

Speaker 2 06:46

And when you finished, then what prompted you to come to Philadelphia from Illinois? Well, I was on my end.

Dr. Dickens 06:53

I spent my internship in Chicago, and there was a woman doctor in Philadelphia whose name was Virginia Alexander, and she was looking for a young doctor to share her practice. She wrote a letter to my hospital provident, and I decided to answer it.

So I came, actually, to practice in her office.

Speaker 2 07:24

and then that's when you start your practicing in the North Philadelphia.

Dr. Dickens 07:28

Yes, she had an off Philadelphia office and I came to practice in her office.

Speaker 2 07:32

So when you applied to the University of Pennsylvania, did you apply directly to the School of Medicine?

Dr. Dickens 07:39

Yes, graduate school of medicine. I never replied to the school of medicine.

Speaker 2 07:45

And how was your experience in the Graduate School of Medicine?

Dr. Dickens 07:51

Well, I don't think it was too much different than it was at the University of Illinois in the Graduate School of Medicine.

Speaker 2 07:59

Do you remember some of the faculty members?

Dr. Dickens 08:03

Yes, I think Dr. Robert Kimbrough was the chairman then, and he was also chairman of Pennsylvania, Ethan Spruce, and I think he was the chairman, not the dean of the graduate school in obstetrics and gynecology.

The late Dr. Robert Kimbrough, I guess I should say.

Speaker 2 08:30

Where did you decide to take the obstetrician? Thank you.

Dr. Dickens 08:39

Well, when I was interning, I guess it was, or when I was in medical school, I couldn't quite decide what I wanted to do. One of my classmates was going into obstetrics and gynecology. And I thought, well, that might be a good feel. When I first saw Baby Delivered, I thought that was wonderful. And so I thought, well, this might be for me.

So I sought training in obstetrics and gynecology. As a matter of fact, I had a year of internship and then a year of residency. I'm trying to think. They didn't call it residency then in obstetrics before I came to Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 09:34

And then after you finish, what do you practice? Please.

Dr. Dickens 09:40

in North Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 09:43

continue practicing.

Dr. Dickens 09:44

After I, well see, I interrupted my training because I came to practice and after practice and I came back here and after leaving here then I went to Harlem in New York and spent three years as a resident before I took my boards.

Speaker 2 10:03

how was the conditions then that's compared to now what would you say there

Dr. Dickens 10:10

Well, of course, there were many fewer women in the field and many fewer women in obstetrics and gynecology compared to now, but there are many fewer women in medicine.

Speaker 2 10:28

So that means that when you finish, you know, after that, after hardening, then you take your board and then you.

Dr. Dickens 10:35

I came back because I already had a practice built in Philadelphia so that I knew that people knew me here and it would be easier to limit my practice to obstetrics and gynecology, which I now had to do, than it would be to do it in a new place where people didn't really know me.

Speaker 2 10:53

And then you went, so that means that you returned to your practice here in North Philadelphia. And then when did you reestablish your affiliation with the University of Pennsylvania? to win.

Dr. Dickens 11:05

Not for a while, because I was at Mercy Douglas Hospital in West Philadelphia, and I was head of the department there at Mercy Douglas Hospital. And then after a few years there, because I came back in 40, I came back in 41, I guess.

And then I went to Mercy Douglas. So it wasn't until a few years later that I came here.

Speaker 2 11:44

And when you came here, what did you do?

Dr. Dickens 11:48

obstetrics and gynecology. I came on as an instructor.

It was competitive, I guess I would say, and we had Dr. Mastriani was coming on as chairman at that time. He was commuting between California and Philadelphia and he interviewed me in a closet because I didn't yet have an office for him. Dr. Payne was still on board and he was stepping down for Dr. Mastriani to become the chairman so that he was my chairman from the beginning.

Speaker 2 12:35

Could you tell us something about Dr. Mastroniani?

Dr. Dickens 12:38

Dr. Mastriani was very enthusiastic about women's care, research for women's health, and so that, as far as I was concerned, he was a very excellent chairman. My relationship with him as chairman was all positive.

He was a hard worker, he made you work. I moved up in a routine manner into tenure.

Speaker 2 13:12

Could you tell us some of the steps as the...

Dr. Dickens 13:15

Did I do well?

Speaker 2 13:16

We have a stropo from a stropo.

Dr. Dickens 13:19

We're structured to associate, to assistant professor, to associate professor, and then to full professor. And now to Professor Meredith.

Speaker 2 13:29

Do you have any chance that you have the opportunity then to work in the children's hospital?

Dr. Dickens 13:35

in Children's Hospital? No, I never worked in Children's Hospital.

Speaker 2 13:39

That doesn't have anything to children hospital is something

Dr. Dickens 13:44

No, I had a program here for pregnant teenagers, but that was here at HOP and they were pregnant when they came to clinic and they were young teenagers.

Speaker 2 13:57

Could you tell us about that clinic, the teenage clinic?

Dr. Dickens 14:00

Well, the clinic, when I came to work in the clinic, I saw all these little girls, I consider little girls, who were pregnant and some of the older women were kind of looking down on them for having this early pregnancy. So I thought that here at University of Pennsylvania, we ought to be able to do more for this group of patients and so that I began to establish a special clinic, take them out of the regular clinic and put them in a special clinic so that they, and then to give more services to them, and so that they had, number one was to try to keep them in school, teach them more about their pregnancy and the childcare and then later on to have the father of the baby involved in the clinic.

So teach him about the baby. So he was hearing the same lectures that the mother was hearing and that also he was learning something about his responsibility as a father to this baby. So that this was how we first, and he could, if he came to the classes, he could go to the delivery room, labor room with her and the delivery room. So we were beginning to reach out to the father and also we had family planning for her and for him if you would accept it. This was our objective was to prevent another pregnancy or if we could not prevent a second pregnancy at least so that she didn't have four or five more pregnancies to keep her in school and to establish some relationship between the mother and the father of the baby. So this was a clinic that I worked with and it was established here and then we finally got a grant so that would keep it going longer.

Speaker 2 16:11

Under what department was this clinic established?

Dr. Dickens 16:14

Statics.

Speaker 2 16:17

Did you then receive regular support from administration for that clinic? It was supported right from the beginning.

Dr. Dickens 16:25

We're not from the department because we were getting extra people to work. And so that for a social worker, and it was on Saturday in the beginning too, so that meant that people had to work on Saturday, extra monies for a social worker and for maybe special nurse and some extras for this group of youngsters.

Speaker 2 16:52

So, at the beginning, where the funding come from then, at the beginning of the grant.

Dr. Dickens 16:59

Well, for the volunteers. We had some volunteers.

We had the Lynx organization who had a social worker. We had our first volunteer from the Lynx, which is an organization of black women which does charitable things in the community. And we had a social worker whose name was Bernice.

Speaker 2 17:29

If you come to your mind, you can say, you can say it.

Dr. Dickens 17:32

Spelman, was their last name, and Spelman, Bernice Spelman, Bernice or something, Spelman, who volunteered, and we had a male social worker who volunteered with the boys. He had worked with the street gangs and he was working with the boys. I remember one day he had several of the boys in the room and they were equating, they sort of equated social worker with policemen. So they weren't saying anything to him, they weren't going to talk.

So he turned the lights off in the room and then they all started talking. So when he turned the lights on again, he had them all talking. So I probably couldn't find out what the name of it was, you can tell it in. But he volunteered so that, and then some of the doctors wise from that organization would volunteer for the girls. We had a play, a little play acting. One of the women, Mrs. Oliver Thomas, had been actor at Hedgerow Theatre and she organized a little group that would act and play so that, and we used to use the clinics over there in the clinic building and they could, nobody was using that on a Saturday, so they could act out there in the hall. So they did things of that kind, which, and we had maybe a beautician come and talk to them, you know, get yourself back in order after. So we were trying to give them a good self-image so that they would not feel that they needed a baby to give them a self-image.

Speaker 2 19:24

For how long were you in the- Join the- Yes. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dickens 19:30

So, I don't know, maybe 10 years, maybe longer. It's only within the last four or five years maybe that I haven't been really active because I have Dr.

Clinton Turner who's working in the clinic now. But we published a few papers and that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 19:48

Have you seen has been effective, the problem?

Dr. Dickens 19:52

I wish I could say, I say yes, it's been effective. And no, it has not been effective in reducing the number of teenage pregnancies.

But for the girls who used it, I think it's been effective in that it reduced the number of pregnancies they might have. It kept some of them in school. And maybe they didn't, maybe more of them went in school, stayed in school. But as far as the statistics, the city statistics, the national statistics, teenage pregnancy is still a problem in that age group, plus the problem of it going to younger women. So at that time, maybe they were 14, 15, 16. Now they can be 13, 12, 11. So that its problem has moved age-wise downward, and it's still there. So that we didn't solve that problem totally.

I think it was things we did were helpful.

Speaker 2 20:55

Are the parents of the teenagers asked to come and talk to the children?

Dr. Dickens 21:01

Yes, we did have a parents group that came. Parents group wasn't very active.

I think now Dr. Ellen Freeman is working with a parents group in that they go into the homes and have the woman bringing her friends into the home and the girls and try to work from the basis of the home. It'll be a while before we know how effective that program will be, but we hope that it came from another angle that it may be more effective. At least it's another angle and another helpful, hopeful thing.

Speaker 2 21:43

What other civic works have you done besides establishing it?

Dr. Dickens 21:50

You mean in the community? Well, I worked with the early pap tests.

I used to take out a van, I guess you would call it now, and ask women to street on the street or edit the churches to come and get their pap tests done.

Speaker 2 22:10

Do you see that?

Dr. Dickens 22:11

Yeah, so it did that with the American Cancer Society, and so the women would come up and get their pap tests done so that early on, it was necessary to educate women to have a pap test done. It was also necessary to educate physicians to do a pap test.

We had a class two for physicians to show them how to do the pap Smith and to encourage community physicians to do the pap tests. Not every physician thought this was a necessary test.

Speaker 2 22:53

Does that continue, this program?

Dr. Dickens 22:56

No, it was not necessary. The physicians became soon educated, so they all know now this is not necessary.

It might be necessary for the women still, but it's not, I think it's generally most women, even the women in the community, know they should have a pet that's done.

Speaker 2 23:14

What other work?

Dr. Dickens 23:17

Well, I guess that's, those are the two works that I could talk about, there are others I don't maybe think about.

Speaker 2 23:24

I understand that you were in a program, in a new television program about health series, about what? A television program about health education.

It has to be doing, the program was called Feeling Good.

Dr. Dickens 23:44

Hmm it well that might have

Speaker 2 23:47

we were supposed to be a member of that program.

Dr. Dickens 23:53

I don't quite recall what that was, but maybe it was to psychologically make people feel good so that they would take care of their health, have some self-pride or some self-esteem. Think well of them.

You think well of yourself, you'll take care of yourself. If you don't think well of yourself, you'll neglect yourself, maybe.

Speaker 2 24:18

Could you tell us how the way, you know, the way the whole service have changed since, that was in 1950 to the 1980 as far as taking care of the patients with the advance of technology because before we didn't have.

Dr. Dickens 24:43

Now you're talking about the University of Pennsylvania. Well we have in vitro fertilization program, which we didn't have then, which has been developed, which Dr. Mastriani helped to develop here.

Now we have younger men, Dr. Turek and several of the younger men who are interested in this program. I'm not working at all, I'm not working at all in that.

Speaker 2 25:20

How do you feel about it?

Dr. Dickens 25:22

I think it's a wonderful technical advance, state of the art.

Speaker 2 25:29

Do you do surgery too?

Dr. Dickens 25:32

I do minor surgery, I no longer do the major surgery, I did.

Speaker 2 25:38

How do you like it to be a surgeon?

Dr. Dickens 25:40

Oh, I enjoyed it, and I miss it.

Speaker 2 25:44

You miss it. One of the things that he has always said that women was very difficult to get into the field, into the medical field as a profession.

Do you feel that way for being a woman, for being a black woman, to have that problem of getting the confidence of the student?

Dr. Dickens 26:07

As a people, I'm not...

Speaker 2 26:11

as a private practitioner, I mean, things have changed, but when you first began, did you encounter problems?

Dr. Dickens 26:19

I don't think there was problems of getting the confidence of the patients. Although there was probably some patients who felt that a man could be more competent than a woman, I think there was more of that feeling generally than there is now in medicine.

Even though the first early women who practiced medicine, and particularly obstetrics, were women in Chicago, the early women were, the early obstetricians were women. I don't have that accurate, but they, the big practice of obstetrics was given to then, to, I don't know what, this county hospital or one of the schools by a woman who had this practice. But women weren't particularly welcomed into any field that had surgery attached to it.

Speaker 2 27:24

And when do you think that you saw the changes that more women were coming into the field?

Dr. Dickens 27:30

Well I think as more women came into medical school, then more women had to go into residencies and internships so that the women gradually moved into faculty positions and of course into private practice.

Speaker 2 27:49

So now you feel that there is no problem in that.

Dr. Dickens 27:56

I wouldn't say there's no problem, but the problem is diminishing. It may not continue to diminish because as men feel competition from this, they may again try to limit the number of women.

But for the moment I think men are interested, that are not going into medicine, are interested in law or in finance or something else. I used to ask in the so-called underdeveloped countries, the women were always at larger numbers in medicine. The Indian women, I mean the East Indian women, Japanese women always sent, Japanese always sent large women's delegations to any international meeting. The Russians, well they didn't send their women, but they have a large number of medical women. I ask a woman from Thailand once, how is it that you have so many and we have so few? And she said the men, I'm quoting her and I didn't check on the accuracy of this, she said the men in Thailand do not see medicine as their prime profession. They see either law or politics. So they really don't mind if the women are in their large numbers. So that may be a point of view.

Speaker 2 29:36

One area where you have been very, very much involved is in alumni affairs to be recruiting, giving the opportunities to minority groups to be admitted to the School of Medicine. Could you tell us how you got involved with that?

Was recruiting? Recruiting, trying to drive to.

Dr. Dickens 29:57

Well, our former Dean, Dean Gellhorn, I think was interested in this, I know was interested in this and started me off into recruiting. He went along and Dr. Edward Cooper who's also on our faculty and he loaded us in his car one day and drove us over to Lincoln University to try to recruit. And so that recruiting has been a part of the minority program as if you don't recruit students who can compete, then you may not have a program.

So you try to recruit students who can compete. You try to attract the students who you interview here to come to Penn, Penn may not be their first choice. So that we're competing with Harvard and Hopkins and other Ivy League Eastern schools for students and some of them have more money than we have. So that all of this is a part of recruiting.

Speaker 2 31:11

So how do those recruitment efforts are done? Do you send letters? Do you?

Dr. Dickens 31:15

We go. We go. We go to the schools. And when I say go, we go, I have an assistant whose name is Dr. Karen Hamilton. I used to go myself all the time. Now I have help. And so one of us or both of us will go to the school when the students are having some activity and present the program to them and see if we can attract them.

When they come here to be interviewed, we have a luncheon for minority students. And so they can meet each other. They can ask us questions and see what we're like. And we bring in the admissions, head of admissions and one of, maybe Dr. Berg, Susan Crow, one or two others to talk to them and see, let them see us as the school. When we have students, sometimes they stay overnight with another minority student so they can ask the student, get the student's view of what we're like. And we think that's a recruiting, that's a less expensive recruiting method because we don't have to go out. They're here and we just give them lunch and talk to them.

And they are shown around the school, of course. That's another method, a little different method. It's a method of recruiting.

Speaker 2 32:47

And then when they are here, do you offer them other support programs to them when they get to the university? Well, when they are accepted and they come here.

Dr. Dickens 32:58

So when they're accepted, do we offer them another program?

Speaker 2 33:02

support you know for a system with with living you know the residence

Dr. Dickens 33:10

Oh, well we have a little booklet that we give them with a lot of facts in it that would help them about students, where to go, where to get their hair done, kind of thing. So we give them a booklet that would help them with specific things that might apply to minority students.

Speaker 2 33:32

Do you recall some of the students that you have recruited and they graduated from here?

Dr. Dickens 33:38

Do we do well?

Speaker 2 33:39

you recall some of the students that you're yourself.

Dr. Dickens 33:43

I didn't get the word, do we report?

Speaker 2 33:46

Did you recall?

Dr. Dickens 33:49

Oh, we have a.

Speaker 2 33:50

some of the students that you, yourself, because of your efforts to recruit it, and they did their program and they are establishing and practicing all that. Some of the students.

Some of the students.

Dr. Dickens 34:09

Once a year we have a minority dinner. We had one Saturday night and we invite students, alumni, faculty, and we had a trustee here Saturday night and they had a dinner.

We had one of our former students as a speaker and we sat them at different tables. That is people who were interested in OBGYN. We tried to get the OBGYN people and put them in the table. Orthopedics, we had one of our former students who has a big orthopedic practice here and we set the students there who were interested in orthopedics. So this kind of relationship, and we had about 140 people. So we, and we had former students that came from as far as Atlanta, Chicago, and of course all over the seas. And so the students could talk to them. This is, we're trying, and the purpose of this dinner was to try to introduce students to academic medicine through research and to get them to be interested in research as a part of their education.

So that was one purpose of the dinner. And the other purpose of the dinner was role modeling. So they could role model. So it was very, very important.

Speaker 2 35:38

Do you have, besides among the minority groups, do you have also Latin Americans?

Dr. Dickens 35:51

Yes, well, I meant to add that, because particularly this dinner last night, we had Latin American, Spanish particularly, professors, we had a professor from here, one from Children's Hospital, and students, so that it was really a minority, wasn't black minority only, but it was sort of a pitch really for Latin American, Spanish minorities, as well as the research angle of it, so we had both.

Speaker 2 36:32

So you have to extend it to older minority groups.

Dr. Dickens 36:35

The W.A.M.C., Associate of Medical Colleges, considers what they call underrepresented minorities. And underrepresented minorities, they consider blacks, Spanish, mainland, American Indians, and Mexican Americans. So that those are the ones that we, when we say minorities, we consider underrepresented minorities.

Now there are other minorities, but they're not underrepresented in the population. So the idea is to recruit more people who are underrepresented. Five, four, three, two, one.

Speaker 2 37:34

Okay, because of the recruitment efforts of attracting minorities, have you seen an increase?

Dr. Dickens 37:42

Well there's been an increase, there's been an increase. When I came here there was one or two minorities every other year, I always say every other year.

Now we're in our incoming class we have ten black minorities and ten other minorities. So we have twenty minorities in the incoming freshman class.

Speaker 2 38:06

Tell me, minorities among the students, what about minorities as faculty members?

Dr. Dickens 38:13

That was part of the purpose of this meeting Saturday night, was to get students to prepare themselves to become faculty members. Not necessarily here, but anywhere because we are in need of more faculty members.

So that we would like students to prepare themselves to be eligible to be looked at as a faculty member. We have some faculty members, of course, they are three full-time members in obstetrics and gynecology and there are two who are part-time.

Speaker 2 39:02

in the other field.

Dr. Dickens 39:04

Well, some have none, and some have medicine has four, ophthalmology has none, and they have just taken a resident, so hopefully we will get one eventually in ophthalmology.

Speaker 2 39:28

What about in the other rank of medicine, like veterinary school, you see that menu?

Dr. Dickens 39:33

The veterinary school, I don't have the statistics in the veterinary school. They have very few, however.

Speaker 2 39:43

One, I have, one in the reading that I have is that you have a huge hand carved elephant on a pedestal in the vestibular of the house, an elephant that someone gave you. Can you tell us how you got to go that elephant?

It's hand carved.

Dr. Dickens 40:05

Elephant in what in what house in my house

Speaker 2 40:13

How'd you find that out? You had never been to my house. He gave it to you because you saved his mother.

Dr. Dickens 40:21

Oh, that story. That story. Oh, you can't do anything around Penn unless somebody thinks about it.

Speaker 2 40:31

It's definitely about to help us out.

Dr. Dickens 40:33

Well, this woman had cancer, early cancer, however, and she got well. So her son was a merchant seaman, that woman's name, and she told me that he would bring me something when he came back.

So, she came trudging in one day with this very heavy wooden elephant, mahogany, I guess he is, any elephant that she was bringing me, that her son had, well she didn't know if her son brought that back for me, because the night that her son came home, he was on his knees praying, and he died on his knees praying. So she never got a chance to ask him what he had brought back for me, but she thought that he had brought this elephant back for me. So here she came, a woman in her seventies, trudging in the office with this heavy elephant that she thought her son, that's how that, that's the story of the elephant.

I don't know how you found that out.

Speaker 2 41:51

That's the story of the elephant. Another thing that really impressed me is that you, I understand that you took the board exam twice.

Dr. Dickens 42:03

Everybody has to take their board.

Speaker 2 42:06

Go to TV.

Dr. Dickens 42:07

You see you take your boards and then every so many years you have to retake it in order to remain active with the board. So I took it originally and then when it was time for me to retake it, I took it again.

And I suppose if I practice long enough I may have to take it again. They do that to be sure you keep your knowledge current.

Speaker 2 42:30

So this is something that they are doing.

Dr. Dickens 42:32

The American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology requires that you take it every so many years.

Speaker 2 42:42

One of the problems that I'm hearing today, especially, was that the prenatal care seems to be very much in a very bad situation. They're having a lot of premature children.

And it is mainly because of the neglect on prenatal care for the mother. Is the School of Medicine doing something for that?

Dr. Dickens 43:19

Well, I'm not sure what it means, but one of the biggest neglect is a woman doesn't come for prenatal care. She doesn't get it because she doesn't come. It's not that she's neglected when she comes, but she doesn't come.

Speaker 2 43:39

In one way, she doesn't come. That means...

Dr. Dickens 43:42

she doesn't have money or she doesn't think it's important, so she doesn't come.

Speaker 2 43:50

So it's not a problem in here at the hospital.

Dr. Dickens 43:52

No, it's not a hospital problem, it's a patient problem.

Speaker 2 43:56

in here is the patient program because some of the things that I heard was that perhaps not here perhaps there has been another hospital that they call and the appointment is not given four months later and it would be too late so here no there is no

Dr. Dickens 44:15

Well, now that I can't answer that, but I can't imagine if the hospital, if the clinic is so busy, they may not give an appointment, they won't give an appointment until they have a place. I would think that would be the only reason, but if the woman called early enough, if she called when she thought she was pregnant, if she didn't get it for a couple of months, she'd probably be all right, but if she waits until she's six months pregnant to call and she doesn't get it for a couple of months, that's another question all again.

Speaker 2 44:55

You don't have to.

Dr. Dickens 44:57

I don't know, because I'm not working in obstetrics any longer. I don't know. We'd have to check that out with one of our social workers.

Speaker 2 45:03

What are you working on now?

Dr. Dickens 45:06

Well, I'm not, I don't know if I'm working on anything now. I don't know if I'm working on anything now. Actually, the last kind of work I did was on AIDS.

Speaker 2 45:19

eight.

Dr. Dickens 45:19

But that was not with patients. I helped to write, or at least do the work for writing, the centerfold that appeared in NEA. Are you familiar with the teacher's union? Is called NEA. I don't know the Philadelphia. And they put out a monthly little magazine. And in the September one of them, there was a centerfold that three scientists from here worked on, and I worked on it, so that it could go out with the September issue. We did it in August, so it could go out with the September issue for the teachers all over the country that were union members, as to how to handle AIDS information in the various communities.

And there was a community in Minnesota, there was one in Camden, there was one outside of Baltimore, and where was the other one? But at any rate, all these are different communities, and all of them would have to handle it differently. What can you tell the children? In some communities, you can't tell them anything much, but you can tell them more if you get maybe the church or some community organization to help you decide what they want to tell the children in that particular community.

So that was something we worked on this summer to see what the, and it went out in NEA, so that was one thing I worked on.

Speaker 2 47:05

How do you start to do that? How do you get involved?

Dr. Dickens 47:09

How did I get involved with that? Yes, that's a good question.

Well, Nancy Bauer, I don't know if you know the name Bauer, okay, asked me if I would work with them on that. And so that's how I got involved.

Speaker 2 47:27

Have you getting work in any other projects?

Dr. Dickens 47:30

No, but I think that's not anymore that that was a temporary thing, but I don't know how.

Speaker 2 47:36

Tell me, when were you supposed to retire?

Dr. Dickens 47:41

Well, you know what I say, or you know what I say about that? No, I would like you to take me over here. I don't think so.

I think she'll open the door. Nancy says no to drugs. I say no to retirement.

Speaker 2 48:02

and how do you manage to keep the younger term in age?

Dr. Dickens 48:06

have I managed to keep fun.

Speaker 2 48:08

How do you manage to keep working past the retirement?

Dr. Dickens 48:14

Oh, you mean how do they let me do this? Well I guess I have a good chairman. And maybe I contribute something. I like to think it's because I contribute something.

Speaker 2 48:33

Yes, and I'm going to begin now. This is, can you tell me what is the Philadelphia Gimbel Award?

Dr. Dickens 48:41

The gimbal award, Philadelphia gimbal award.

Speaker 2 48:43

a recipient in 1970.

Dr. Dickens 48:47

I think it was for the Teenage Pregnancy Project.

Speaker 2 48:50

Will you then?

Dr. Dickens 48:52

Tell me about it. The Gimbell Store gave an award to a woman who they thought had done some outstanding work every year in Philadelphia. And they gave it to various people. And I happened to be the one that received it one year.

I think they gave it to Constance Clayton one year and they gave it to Emily Mudd and they gave it to various people, the Gimbell Award. They gave it to, I think they might have given it to Indira Gandhi. They've given it to various women who've done some things. Distinguished daughter of Pennsylvania, I received an honorary degree from Penn, an honorary degree from medical college, Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois, and I guess that's about it.

Speaker 2 50:06

You were also the, uh, this, uh, surgeon, I mean, a bunch of surgeons. Lleweil? Searching. The Searching American Police of Searching, Searching the Searching.

Dr. Dickens 50:21

college of surgeons, are you saying? Oh yes, but that's a different kind of a fellow American college of surgeons, fellow American college of OBGYN, that's a different kind of award.

Speaker 2 50:34

They say that you were the first black.

Dr. Dickens 50:37

American College of Surgeons, first black woman.

Speaker 2 50:42

What other award have you received?

Dr. Dickens 50:49

Well, I've got some local...

Speaker 2 50:55

One of the, were you connected at all with the School of Nursing?

Dr. Dickens 51:02

No, I may have gotten an award from them.

Speaker 2 51:07

So you would have involved with the health promotion for black, for black Americans. Anything to do with the school of nursing? Did you work at any time?

Dr. Dickens 51:17

Well they had a school of nursing at the old Mercy Hospital where I was. It may be that there was something there I don't remember at the moment.

Speaker 2 51:27

You also to receive there was a portrait of you.

Dr. Dickens 51:31

Oh. Yes. There's a portrait over in the medical school. Did you know that? Who did that was?

Speaker 2 51:53

They say that this is the first, a portrait of the first black woman.

Dr. Dickens 52:06

Oh.

Speaker 2 52:10

Remember?

Dr. Dickens 52:11

I don't remember. Oh, I got that woman to do it. She lived in my building.

Speaker 2 52:22

It will come to me.

Dr. Dickens 52:27

Well, it was given to the school by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. They paid to have it done, my department, and was given, was presented to the medical school.

Franklin, it was her name, Charlotte Franklin, did the portraits.

Speaker 2 52:49

That portrait also has a significant, it was because it was the first, I don't think there are many women anyway.

Dr. Dickens 53:04

There are not too many women, but there are few.

Speaker 2 53:07

Well, you are the-

Dr. Dickens 53:12

So, uhm...

Speaker 2 53:13

See you. Bye.

Dr. Dickens 53:14

I guess I was the first black woman on the faculty, first black woman on the faculty.

Speaker 2 53:22

For you, Tebni.

Dr. Dickens 53:24

I said the first black woman on the faculty.

Speaker 2 53:26

What, what, fuck?

Dr. Dickens 53:29

of any department.

Speaker 2 53:30

of any department.

Dr. Dickens 53:31

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 53:35

How do you feel to be in the first place?

Dr. Dickens 53:39

I don't feel any way particularly by being the first. I guess I just am one who decides what I want to do and don't worry whether I'm the first or the forty-first. If I have something I want to do, then I work toward that end. I don't worry whether I'm the first or the forty-first, and I don't worry whether I'm black, green, gray. It's just something I want to do.

Speaker 2 54:10

so for you it doesn't matter whether you are a black or a woman it is a matter of where you set your goals and what I want to do.

Dr. Dickens 54:17

I would take that.

Speaker 2 54:18

So, as far as you represent, you have had a very good experience at Penn.

Dr. Dickens 54:25

Yes, I have had not a good experience trying to get here, but I have not had a bad experience at Penn.

Speaker 2 54:35

What do you mean by you didn't have a very

Dr. Dickens 54:37

I'm not going to tell you.

Speaker 2 54:42

Stop there, I'm going to tell her.

Dr. Dickens 54:49

As a matter of fact, they weren't very interested, but that was for school, not for faculty. That was for school, where they weren't interested, but for faculty, I didn't have a problem.

They didn't think I was a man either.

Speaker 2 55:04

So you didn't have any problem relating with your classmates or relating with

Dr. Dickens 55:07

You mean in school? In my medical school?

Oh, oh, well, there were five women, and I don't think we, I don't think we, see, 175, we didn't try to relate to warlords. You had, I mean, a few you could relate to, and you related to them. I don't think we tried to relate to all of that. And, you know, occasionally the teacher would make an anti-woman remark that now all the women would walk out of class, and some of the men would walk out with them if they made an anti-woman remark, which then they didn't.

Speaker 2 55:58

that you've accepted it.

Dr. Dickens 56:00

accepted it. One professor made an anti-black remark one day, and we never went back to his class. We were waiting for him to flunk us, but he didn't. So you know, you had things like that.

You did what you could at the time to do. We just didn't return to his class. I think it must have been near the end of the time where he would have flunked us, but anyway, we just never returned to his class.

Speaker 2 56:34

Do you see a lot of difference then when they, you were here during the 60s. Do you see difference as to the student attitude?

Dr. Dickens 56:42

I don't think a professor would dare make a real anti-woman remark. I think the women would walk out en masse and I think some of the men would walk out.

Or he'd be written up so in the Daily Pennsylvanian that I think. I think they just, some of them will do it anyhow, but they will, it's not prevalent, not that prevalent that people have to put up with it.

Speaker 2 57:15

so that before it was something like they accepted it.

Dr. Dickens 57:18

I think in 40, women probably just shook it off and went on.

Speaker 2 57:25

Do you notice a gradual change on that and the other?

Dr. Dickens 57:31

No, it was just gradual. It was gradual as the weight of numbers. So if you have 40 percent of your class paying tuition and they're women, then you're not going to insult 40 percent of the people who are paying tuition because next year they'll go somewhere else. Not that group, but you know, there's a big, at least that's how I feel.

And then there is a woman's group here. There's a fairly strong woman's group here.

Speaker 2 58:01

Is there a women group involved in every school?

Dr. Dickens 58:06

Well, it's involved for all the women, yes. Not every school, I don't think the medical school is much involved with it, but they are involved for the medical school if they want to be.

Speaker 2 58:17

So you have no, you really have, there is more cohesion and more support.

Dr. Dickens 58:23

There's support for that.

Speaker 2 58:28

about—you see, there is a problem about interacting. I don't know. I'm going to change it.

007_Dickens_2

Transcript

Speaker 1 00:08

With this, however, with this malpractice insurance you

Dr. Dickens 00:18

And, of course, the people in practice are finding out that they don't make so much money after all, because they have to pay the lawyers, and they have to buy insurance so that in the end they may not have as much money as they think they were going to have.

Speaker 1 00:41

We didn't mention that you were a member of the Philadelphia District Board of the American member of the Philadelphia District Board of the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Dickens 00:55

Oh, American Cancer Society, yes. You mentioned that, right? Yeah, I mentioned that, I think.

Speaker 1 01:01

I don't remember it being talked about at all. No, he was a member.

But I don't remember it being discussed. Because I really would like, yes, because you said in here, you said that you were a member of the Philadelphia District Board of the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Dickens 01:16

society.

Speaker 1 01:18

And my question to you would have been is how would you become a member?

Dr. Dickens 01:27

Somebody invited me to become a member, I think. You usually are invited to become a board member.

Speaker 1 01:31

But you have to do something before you're involved.

Dr. Dickens 01:34

Well, I did that project I was telling you, the pap test.

Speaker 1 01:39

And then I will ask that because we would like to edit it when you're having a debate. Thanks for watching.

Dr. Dickens 01:45

When did I have it?

Speaker 1 01:46

Yeah, that's how I said that you were invited to be a member of the Philadelphia District Board of the American Cancer Association.

Dr. Dickens 01:53

I can call. I don't know if that's why.

Speaker 1 01:58

I think then you would say, I think.

Dr. Dickens 02:00

I think that might have been why, okay, might be why.

Speaker 1 02:05

So you were a member of the Philadelphia District Board of the American Cancer Society. Do you know why you were invited to be a member?

Dr. Dickens 02:12

It may be because I had the project of doing pap tests in the community and a mobile unit which we took to churches and to the streets.

Speaker 1 02:25

And what was the name of that war?

Dr. Dickens 02:28

American Cancer Society Board.

Speaker 1 02:32

One of the problems that is being encountered is that while it is true that they want to attract students to keep going and doing research and eventually become faculty of university is a problem of the financial remuneration and also because they end up with a lot of in debt, would you give me your comments on that?

Dr. Dickens 03:07

Well, I think that some students are suited to research. They really like it. They would rather do that than to practice. So that if they are funded so that they can do it, this would be their preference and they have things to contribute.

They might make the discoveries. Dr. Percy Julien was a black scientist who discovered cortisone, the use of cortisone, and from soybeans he discovered proteins. He also discovered a firefighting fluid that they use on battleships and they save thousands of lives in the First World War with this fluid and they, for all I know, they are using it in the Persian Gulf. But a scientist can come from anywhere so that we may be losing talent not to encourage some of these young people to go into research and not necessarily become a faculty member at Penn. There are many faculties around the country in which they could become faculty members. We can't take hold of them, but we might take some of them and then there are other faculties which they could also be eligible to become members of.

Speaker 1 04:39

Is this, for them, how is, as far as salaries are concerned, financial remuneration is as attractive as opening their own practice for them to decide?

Dr. Dickens 04:51

may become more attractive as the malpractice insurance becomes more expensive. And no, it hasn't been.

But it depends. If that's something a student really likes, if he's into medicine because of his intellect and because he wants to use his intellect for research, then the financial remuneration is not why he's in medicine. He wants to pay his bills, of course. But he would not trade financial remuneration for the use of his brain.

Speaker 1 05:28

What do you think about my practice?

Dr. Dickens 05:31

Malpractice, I think until the doctors, AMA, and the organized medicine does something about it, it's going to keep going up. And I'm not sure when they will do anything to cause it to be lowered.

You don't know, that's down the road. It's a long-term plan, so it's not going down tomorrow or the next day.

Speaker 1 06:06

Do you have in here any, like, continue to have a reach-out, reach-out programs for the people living in, like, North Philly in very reported, deplorable conditions as how to help them, like, for instance, sending the intern here to those neighborhoods to meet the needs of the people.

Dr. Dickens 06:37

You mean the homeless people?

Speaker 1 06:40

and the people who are in financial constraint, you know, the lower.

Dr. Dickens 06:48

Do we have a program at the medical school?

Speaker 1 06:51

reach out for them.

Dr. Dickens 06:54

I don't know that we do. The students, I think, on the campus have a reach out program that takes food and that sort of thing, but I don't know that we have a reach out program that's named as such in the medical school. We may, you don't quote me on that, we might, but I'm not familiar with it.

Speaker 1 07:16

And one of the problem, I am giving you a program now, and there's nothing to do with the reading that. The problem with America here is that because of the very high prices, cause of America, the people really need them. Not the ones that have absolute poverty, but I'm talking about the lower middle class who do their job, they don't have any medical insurance coverage. And I was wondering if there would be some sort of programs like, especially through the hospitals, in a way to have some of those health care preached to these people who do not have the means, other means to do that. I'm just.

Dr. Dickens 08:12

They're four million, aren't they four million dollars in debt now from maybe trying to help? And the hospital can only help to the extent that it can help. Then they go in debt and become needy. Hospitals have closed because of giving service and we don't want to get into that position.

It seems like we ought to be able to help, but unless we have philanthropists who give us money to help, that as the income of the hospital goes down, the more people they take care of who cannot pay or cannot pay full fees. So that I think that we would be in that position as a hospital if we took on more than we could afford to, because we didn't take in and the cost of medical care is skyrocketing so much. And you can see that unless we have philanthropists who are giving the money, a hospital doesn't make that kind of money.

Speaker 1 09:36

Do you have any other things to add, to say that would be important for the future students of the University of Pennsylvania? What advice would you tell someone who chose college? How many as a student?

Dr. Dickens 09:58

I would say you can get a good education here. You work hard and you can enjoy your life here at Penn as much as you can enjoy going to medicine anywhere.

There are many things, activities, if you have time to take a part in them and you will get a first-class education. That's why you come.

Speaker 1 10:33

That's it.

DMU Timestamp: February 26, 2025 22:37

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