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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 14. The Negro in Business, the Professions, Public Service and Other White Collar Occupations - 6. The Negro in Medical Professions
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Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 323
with the assimilation of immigrants and with the gradual institution of
public health services for low income families. The Negro doctor, in the
main, must depend on Negro patronage. And the overwhelming majority
of both the white and the Negro patients of the Negro doctor are poor.
Expenditures of private families for medical care increase with income at
least proportionately, and sometimes more than proportionately.^®
Only some of the dollars expended by Negro families on doctor’s fees
are paid to Negro physicians. Carter G. Woodson, on the basis of certain
inquiries he has made, tentatively estimates the proportion of the Negro
trade that goes to the Negro doctor to be about 60 per cent. He complains
about
... the large number of Negro leaders who after preaching race patronage and even
boasting of our competent physicians and surgeons as proof of race progress, never-
theless have employed white surgeons in undergoing operations.**®
He goes on to explain how the trade the Negro doctor gets is not always
indicative of any original appreciation of his competence among the Negro
people. It has happened that white physicians have had to talk to Negro
patients in order to make them believe that doctors of their own race are
any good. Often it is only because white physicians want to restrict their
practice to white patients that Negroes turn to Negro doctors.®®
Another reason for the limitation of opportunities for Negro doctors is
the fact that most public health services in the South are poorer, in relation
to the need, for Negroes than for whites.® Even when there are facilities
for Negro patients, it does not always mean that they offer any work
opportunities for the Negro doctor. White professionals take care of the
patients both in the white section and in the ‘^colored wing” of a typical
Southern hospital. Dorn observes:
Until the Flint-Goodridge Hospital was built in New Orleans with the assist-
ance of the Rosenwald Fund and the General Education Board, there was not a
single modern hospital in Louisiana where a Negro physician could practice. In
Mississippi . . . there are no modern hospitals where a Negro physician may take his
patients. A corresponding situation prevails in most of the other southern states. North
and South Carolina are an exception due mainly to the assistance of the Duke
Endowment Fund.®^
There are only a few hospitals in the United States, such as Harlem Hospi-
tal in New York City, where Negro and white doctors work together under
a system of absolute equality. Concerning the situation in the South, Reid
oays:
Even in cities like Atlanta and Richmond where white medical colleges have con-
trol over large public wards of local hospitals, Negro physicians are not permitted
*See Chapter 15, Section 4-
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