She Opened The First General Hospital For African Americans In The State Of Georgia In 1920, As Well As The First Obstetrical Hospital For African American Women
There have been so many magnificent women who worked and made progress in the medical field and changed the game for generations to come.
One of those women was Georgia Rooks Dwelle, an African American physician from Georgia who made history after opening the first general hospital for African Americans in the state and the first obstetrical hospital for African American women.
Georgia was born in Albany, Georgia in 1884. Her father was a trustee of Spelman Seminary, a Black women’s liberal arts college, which was where she decided to go to school. After graduating, Georgia decided she wanted to go to medical school. She was the first Spelman graduate to do so.
She graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville with honors in 1904 before returning to Georgia to take the Georgia State Medical Board Examination. Georgia ended up receiving one of the best scores out of her peers that year.
After completing the exam, Georgia became one of three African-American women physicians in Georgia. She began practicing in the early 1900s and set up her own obstetrical and pediatrics practice in Atlanta.
Around that time, she noticed just how poor living conditions were for Black people in the city and how little access they had to proper medical care.
That’s when she decided to take matters into her own hands and establish the Dwelle Infirmary, the first general hospital for African Americans in Atlanta.
The hospital was very small with only two beds and a few rented rooms available for patients, but its services were crucial to the community and expanded over the years.
By 1920, the hospital also became the obstetrical hospital for African-American women, which was a huge milestone for women’s rights and healthcare.
kinwun – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
In the next 10 years, the hospital would offer a variety of services like a mother’s club that provided women with all the resources and post-natal care they needed after giving birth, a well-baby clinic, etc.
While running the hospital, Georgia was also very involved in her local community, volunteering for several organizations and providing charitable works through the local Baptist church.
She sat on the Board of Directors of Atlanta’s Urban League and worked as a girls’ physician at Morris Brown University.
Amazingly, the hospital operated out of the same rented rooms for 27 years until it was time for Georgia to retire and move to Chicago. The Dwelle Infirmary closed in 1949.
During her later years, Georgia was made vice president of the National Medical Association, an organization made for Black physicians, and served on several national and international committees.
Georgia continued to serve others and focused on providing accessible resources and healthcare to those who needed it most until she passed away in 1977 at 93.
Her career was extremely impressive, and her bravery, intelligence, and hard work will always be remembered.
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