From 1945-1966, Park J. White, MD, a white pediatrician at Children’s Hospital, serves concurrently as the pediatric director at Homer G. Phillips Hospital. Image: Park J. White, MD
1945: Park J. White, MD, as Homer G. Phillips pediatric director
Category: Homer G. Phillips Hospital
1937: Robert Elman, MD, one of many white Jewish physicians at Homer G. Phillips Hospital
Washington University’s Robert Elman, MD, chief of surgery at Homer G. Phillips Hospital from 1937 to 1955, is one of many white Jewish physicians who treat patients there alongside Black physician colleagues. “Excellence in one’s own field, small as it may be, is the best and perhaps the only way in which each individual can […]
“In 1940, I graduated from Meharry Medical School and was accepted as an intern at Homer G. Phillips Hospital. I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi and came up Easton Avenue; I turned right on Whittier, keeping my eye out for the hospital, since I didn’t know what it looked like. Finally, I saw it — and I had to pull over. I was amazed; I had never seen anything like it. I had to park and turn off the engine and just look at this beautiful hospital. I said to myself, ‘Oh, my God. Oh, my God!”
— James Whittico, MD
1937: Homer G. Phillips Hospital for the Colored opens
Homer G. Phillips Hospital for the Colored, a public hospital for Black patients, opens in the Ville neighborhood of St. Louis. It has more training slots for Black interns and residents than any other hospital nationwide. It is named for Homer G. Phillips, a Black attorney who fought for the new hospital; he was murdered […]
1923: St. Louis earmarks $1 million for Black hospital
St. Louis passes an $87 million bond issue, with $1 million earmarked for a hospital that would care for Black patients. A dispute soon rages over whether the hospital should be free-standing or an adjunct to the white City Hospital #1. Black advocates, including attorney Homer G. Phillips, press hard for a separate Black hospital […]