Paul Cornely

Paul Bertau Cornely (March 9, 1906 – February 9, 2002) was an American physician, public health pioneer and civil rights activist. In 1934 he became the first African American person to earn a doctoral degree in public health. He was elected President of the American Public Health Association in 1970.

Paul Bertau Cornely
Born(1906-03-09)9 March 1906
Died9 February 2002(2002-02-09) (aged 95)
Alma materUniversity of Michigan (BA, MD, PhD)
Scientific career
InstitutionsHoward University
Lincoln Hospital
ThesisA survey of post graduate medical education in the united states and an inquiry into the educational needs of the general practitioner. (1934)

Early life and education

Cornely was born in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe.[1][2] His mother was Adrienne Mellon and his father Eleodore Cornely.[3] At the age of three his family moved to Puerto Rico.[2] He moved to the United States as a teenager, and grew up mainly in Harlem then Detroit.[2] He attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a bachelor's degree and medical degree. At the time, very few medical schools admitted Black students, and segregation limited medical students opportunities to complete internships.[3] During his medical studies Cornely was one of only four Black students in a class of 250.[2] He was also a student during the Great Depression, which particularly impacted African-American communities in the United States, and had to work to support himself throughout his studies.[4] He later recalled that during his final year of medical school he did not know whether he would be able to return to college because of the lack of jobs.[4] Eventually his medical studies were supported by the Julius Rosenwald fund.[4] Because of segregation, Black physicians were only allowed to intern at Black hospitals, which were often overcrowded and had poor safety standards.[3] Cornely was an intern at Lincoln Hospital, which was financially supported by wealthy white donors because white people believed that treating diseases amongst Black communities “would prevent spreading diseases to whites,”.[3] Upon finishing his internship, Cornely was not able to find a surgical residency programme that would admit Black physicians, so returned to the University of Michigan to complete a doctoral degree. His doctoral research considered postgraduate medical education in the United States. He specialised in hygiene and public health.[5] In 1934 he became the first Black person to earn a doctorate in public health in the United States.[3] Whilst at the University of Michigan Cornely was supported by John Sundwall, the first director of the University of Michigan health service, and Warren Forsythe, then President of the American Public Health Association.[4]

Research and career

In 1934 Cornely joined the faculty of the Howard University College of Medicine.[6] At Howard Cornely developed a programme that concentrated on public health provision to underserved communities.[1] He worked in preventative medicine and, in 1942, was named Head of the Department of Bacteriology.[5] In his early career he visited historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) across the United States, where he monitored the quality of health centres and other campus facilities.[3] As part of this work he identified severe shortcomings in the number of healthcare workers (some 19 nurses to serve 24,000 students) and was not impressed by the sanitary conditions of cafeterias.[3] He found that the dormitories were overcrowded, and rarely provided suitable facilities for personal hygiene or studying.[3] On his return to Howard University, Cornely wrote a series of recommendations to improve the living conditions of students at HBCUs.[3] He was made Director of the Howard University Hospital, where he studied tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections and scarlet fever.[5][7][8] He worked alongside Dorothy Celeste Boulding Ferebee, an African-American gynaecologist and civil rights activist.[4]

Cornely became involved with the civil rights movement in the 1950s, planning the Imhotep National Conference on hospital integration.[3] The conference was named after Imhotep, an Egyptian physician.[3] The Imhotep conference series hoped to encourage voluntary desegregation, looking to give Black communities access to quality care at otherwise white hospitals.[3] Whilst the conference series raised public awareness about the impact of racism on healthcare, it was largely boycotted by White hospitals and nursing schools.[3] In 1963 Cornely attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where he served as the medical coordinator.[7] The Imhotep conferences continued until Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[3]

At Howard University, Cornely advocated for culturally sensitive training to be given to white healthcare providers. In particular, Cornely called for psychiatrists and psychologists to better recognise the impacts of racism and discrimination on mental health.[3] He led several initiatives to increase the representation of people of colour in healthcare, from physicians to policy makers.[3] In 1967 Cornely worked with the American Public Health Association to lead a nationwide conference on “The Health Status of the Negro".[7][9]

In 1968 he organised the Black Caucus of Health Workers, which continues to support African-American public health workers to this day.[10][11] Working with then American Public Health Association President Lester Breslow, Cornely traveled across the United States, investigating the physical health and working conditions of people of colour.[3] He visited Houston, California and Montana, where he observed chronic neglect and abuse of people of colour at the hands of government officials.[3]

Cornely frequently called out pseudoscientific studies that claimed Black people were inherently inferior, all of which ignored social determinants of health and wellbeing.[3] In 1985 he wrote that “discrimination and segregation have no place in health,”.[12] Beyond civil rights, Cornely was an advocate for public health for all, arguing that the government should provide healthcare to all citizens before getting "a man on the moon".[3]

Cornely was aware of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment throughout its existence and taught it as a case study to African-American medical students at Howard University.[13] In later life he described his failure to realize its ethical problems as a major mistake: "I considered myself to be an activist...yet here right under my nose something is happening and I'm blind."[13] He felt that it raised issues of racism and classism: "I saw it as an academician. It shows you how we looked at human beings, especially blacks who were expendable."[13][14][15]

In 1973, after almost forty years at Howard University, Cornely retired as a Professor Emeritus of Community Health.[5]

Academic service

In 1939 Cornely founded the National Student Health Association. In 1962 Cornely was the founding President of the District of Columbia Public Health Association, which went on to become the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association.[16] In 1970 he was the first Black person to be elected President of the American Public Health Association.[1]

Awards and honours

His awards and honours include;

Selected publications

His publications include;

  • King, Ernest Q. (1950-05-06). "Clinical Observations on the Use of Terramycin Hydrochloride". Journal of the American Medical Association. 143 (1): 1–4. doi:10.1001/jama.1950.02910360003001. ISSN 0002-9955. PMID 15415221.
  • Cornely, Paul B. (1956). "Segregation and Discrimination in Medical Care in the United States". American Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health. 46 (9): 1074–1081. doi:10.2105/ajph.46.9.1074. ISSN 0002-9572. PMC 1624033. PMID 13354824.
  • Cornely, Paul B. (1944-03-25). "Distribution of Negro Physicians in the United States in 1942". Journal of the American Medical Association. 124 (13): 826. doi:10.1001/jama.1944.02850130012005. ISSN 0002-9955.

Personal life

Cornely became a naturalised American citizen in 1934. That year he married Mae Stewart.[3] He died on February 9, 2002.[5] In honour of Cornely, the University of Michigan established the Cornely Postdoctoral Programme, which provides support to public health scholars “who are conducting research on the clarification, reduction, and elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities”.[18] In 1984 The Physician Forum launched the Paul Cornely Award.[19]

References
  1. "Cornely, Paul B. (Paul Bertau), 1906- - Social Networks and Archival Context". snaccooperative.org. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  2. "Cornely, Paul Bertau". Oxford African American Studies Center. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001 (inactive 2021-01-11). Retrieved 2020-06-30.CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2021 (link)
  3. Kuykendall, Sally (2018-06-08). Encyclopedia of Public Health: Principles, People, and Programs [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-983-9.
  4. Prescott, Heather Munro (2007). Student Bodies: The Influence of Student Health Services in American Society & Medicine. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-11608-9.
  5. "History". www.crech-test.org. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  6. Ridlon, Florence (2005). A Black Physician's Struggle for Civil Rights: Edward C. Mazique, M.D. UNM Press. ISBN 978-0-8263-3339-1.
  7. Brown, Theodore M.; Fee, Elizabeth (2011). "Paul B. Cornely (1906–2002): Civil Rights Leader and Public Health Pioneer". American Journal of Public Health. 101 (S1): S164. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2010.300052. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 3222469. PMID 21778476.
  8. "Black Pioneers in Mental Health". Mental Health America. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  9. Cornely, Paul B. (2011-11-28). "The Health Status of the Negro Today and in the Future". American Journal of Public Health. 101 (S1): S161–S163. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2011.101S1S161. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 3222497. PMID 22077065.
  10. "Black Caucus of Health Workers". www.apha.org. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  11. Seeman, Isadore. "Remembering Paul Cornely". Washington Post.
  12. Cornely, Paul B (1985-09-01). "Crippling a Nation: Health in Apartheid South Africa". Journal of Public Health Policy. 6 (3): 415–418. doi:10.2307/3342408. ISSN 1745-655X. JSTOR 3342408. S2CID 74165847.
  13. Smith, Susan (2010-08-03). Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: Black Women's Health Activism in America, 1890-1950. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 110–111. ISBN 978-0-8122-0027-0.
  14. Reverby, Susan (2009). Examining Tuskegee: the infamous syphilis study and its legacy. University of North Carolina Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-8078-3310-0.
  15. Ward, Thomas J. (2003). Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South (c). University of Arkansas Press. pp. 262–4. ISBN 978-1-61075-072-1.
  16. "History – MWPHA". Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  17. "Previous Sedgwick Memorial Medal winners". www.apha.org. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  18. "Description". www.crech.org. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  19. "APHA Annual Meeting". Peace Caucus in Affi. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
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