Oral history of Louise Cavagnaro

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Louise Cavagnaro, originally from Portland, Oregon, was a major figure in the history of the Johns Hopkins Hospital for the last half of the twentieth century. She served as an operating nurse in combat zones during World War II and the director of nursing in Hiroshima with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, after which she earned an M.A. in Hospital Administration from Columbia University and came to work at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1953. She filled many roles during her time teaching and administrating in the Hospital, as well as the School of Nursing. Most notably, it was Cavagnaro who led the charge to desegregate the Hospital and its affiliate institutions, about which she wrote a book in 1992 titled "A History of Segregation and Desegregation at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions." In this oral history, Cavagnaro describes the challenges of being a female in the male-dominated medical milieu of the 1950s, the Johns Hopkins Hospital and how it has changed over time, and the racial politics of the Hospital. This oral history is part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Oral history of Elmo Douglass

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Baltimore native Elmo Douglass graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1954 with a degree in civil engineering. After graduation, Douglass joined the Army Corps, and later had a long career in highway and transit engineering for the California Department of Transportation. In this history, Douglass recounts his time at Hopkins as one of the first African-American undergraduates in the school of engineering. This oral history is part of the Hopkins Retrospective oral histories series.

Oral history of Myron Weisfeldt

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Dr. Myron "Mike" Weisfeldt attended Johns Hopkins as an undergraduate from 1960-1962, completing an accelerated medical school program. He then attended the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, earning his M.D. in 1965. Weisfeldt went on to work as a physician at the hospital, an Assistant Professor of Medicine and, later, the Director of the Cardiology division at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Weisfeldt was the William Osler Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine from 2001 to 2014. He was also Physician-in-Chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1990, he served as President of the American Heart Association. In this interview, Weisfeldt discusses his time as a student, faculty member, administrator, and physician at Hopkins. This oral history is part of the Hopkins Retrospective oral histories series.

Oral history of Levi Watkins

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Levi Watkins, Jr. was born in Parsons, Kansas. He completed his undergraduate work at Tennessee State University, where he majored in biology. He went on to become the first African American to be admitted to the Vanderbilt School of Medicine. Despite facing enormous prejudice, Watkins graduated in 1970. He completed his medical internship at Johns Hopkins, where he was the first black intern. He then went to study at Harvard Medical School's Department of Physiology. There, he completed revolutionary research on congestive heart failure. In 1975, Watkins returned to Hopkins and became Hopkins' first black chief resident in heart surgery. Watkins notably performed the first implantation of an automatic heart defibrillator. In this history, Watkins discusses his experiences as an African-American in the medical field in the middle of the 20th century as well as his career and education. This oral history is part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Oral history of Ernest Bates

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Doctor Ernest Bates, originally from Peekskill, New York, graduated from Johns Hopkins and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and founded American Shared Hospital Services, a company that leases medical equipment to hospitals across the United States. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University, the Board of Visitors of the Johns Hopkins Medical Center, and on the Johns Hopkins Neurosurgery Advisory Board. In this oral history, Bates discusses his experiences at Hopkins as the first African-American student in the School of Arts and Sciences in 1954, the difficulties of segregation off campus, and his subsequent activities as a trustee with Hopkins. This oral history is part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Oral history of Marjorie Lewisohn

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Marjorie Lewisohn was born in 1918 in Manhattan. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1940 and went on to complete her degree in medicine at Johns Hopkins University in 1943. In her early career, she spent time treating tuberculosis at Bellevue Hospital. By the 1950s, Dr. Lewisohn had gone into private practice while still maintaining staff physician positions at both Lenox Hill Hospital and Doctor's Hospital as well as a clinical professorship at the New York Hospital- Cornell University Medical Center. She rekindled her connection with Johns Hopkins in 1972, when she began her 18-year tenure as a trustee of Johns Hopkins University. She was the first female trustee of the university. In this history, Lewisohn recounts her experiences as a woman at the Hopkins Medical School in the early 1940s. This oral history is a part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Oral history of Donald Coffey

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Donald S. Coffey was born on October 10, 1932 in Bristol, Virginia. He attended King College there before transferring to the University of East Tennessee. In 1957, Coffey moved to Baltimore to work for Westinghouse, after which he took night classes at the Hopkins night school (McCoy College) and eventually began to work for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the Brady Research Laboratory. This led Coffey to apply to the Department of Physiological Chemistry in the medical school for his graduate education. Coffey subsequently received his Ph.D. in 1964, became a professor of urology in the School of Medicine, and served as editor for many scholarly journals. In this oral history, Coffey discusses his early life, how he came to work at Hopkins, and his colleagues and work in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. This oral history is part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.