Physician / Trailblazer for Minority Healthcare
When some doctors would not treat her family or others sharing her ethnic heritage, she vowed to become a doctor who treated everyone fairly regardless of the color of their skin.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Edith Peterson Mitchell (EM) was an African American born in Brownsville, Tennessee.
CHILDHOOD
During EM’s childhood in Tennessee, her family along with all other Black residents of the Brownsville area were unable to receive medical care from White doctors. So, they had to rely on a local Black doctor for all types of medical treatment. This discrimination by the White doctors inspired EM to later pursue a career in medicine, as she vowed – silently to herself – to push for fair access to medical care for everyone regardless of their ethnicity.
EDUCATION
Understanding that only excellent students would qualify for medical school admission, EM worked hard in school, earning recognition as her high school’s ‘Valedictorian’ (the graduate with the highest academic achievements of the class, who delivers the ‘valedictory’ speech at the graduation ceremony.)
EM’s education journey next took her to Tennessee State University, a member of the ‘HBCU’ network of well-regarded secondary schools: Historically Black Colleges and Universities. (2020 enrollment about 9,000). EM earned her Bachelor’s degree in biochemistry.
Immediately following her college graduation, EM was admitted to the Medical College of Virginia (now called Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine), as one of the few minority enrollees.
FIRST CAREER – MILITARY
While still a medical student, believing that her employment opportunities as a Black physician would be limited and needing to earn money to support herself while a full-time medical student, EM enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, which welcomed her as a physician-to-be by earning a minimal salary while she served part-time as a reservist and then, upon her med school graduation, full-time pay as an Officer in the medical corps of the Air Force, called a ‘Flight Surgeon.’
(A Flight Surgeon is a military medical officer practicing a form of occupational / clinical medicine. Flight Surgeons are physicians – MDs (medical doctors) or DOs (doctors of osteopathy) – who serve as the primary care physicians for a variety of military aviation personnel – e.g. pilots, flight officers, navigators, astronauts, missile combat crews and air traffic controllers.)
During her military service, EM was stationed at Air Force bases and hospitals in Maryland, Washington, California, Missouri, and Illinois.
EM eventually graduated from the Air War College and became the first female physician to attain the Air Force rank of Brigadier General. She earned more than a dozen medals and ribbons during her time in the military service and later, often worked with the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Philadelphia.
SECOND CAREER – MEDICAL DOCTOR / PROFESSOR / ADVOCATE
Ironically, while holding the military title of ‘Flight Surgeon,’ EM never performed any surgical procedures. Her professional medical specialty was cancer and gastrointestinal research and treatment, for which EM was praised by many colleagues as a “woman before her time” and a “monumental contributor to medical research.”
Dr. EM joined the Thomas Jefferson University medical school, where she was a professor of medicine while evaluating hundreds of new drugs and treatment procedures, was a mentor to many and closest to her heart, dug deep to understand how disadvantages patients could be better served, then advocating for equal access to healthcare without regard to racial heritage.
CHALLENGE – TREATMENT OF MINORITIES WITHIN HEALTH CARE
“We all know that there is not racial equality in this country,” said EM to the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper in 2015, “and the lack of racial equality extends into health care.”
“Most schools in the United States only admit a few underrepresented minorities a year,” stated EM in 2023. “We’ve got to increase the number of underrepresented individuals in medicine.”
CAREER SATISFACTION
EM was known for her humility, wit, compassion, and dedication as well as for her medical achievements. Colleagues at Jefferson said in a tribute: “Dr. Mitchell’s impact will continue to be seen and known for generations to come.”
Featured many times in two Philadelphia newspapers (Inquirer and Daily News) and other publications, EM published more than 100 scholarly articles and book chapters about all sorts of medical subjects, and she spoke often about the inequities that scar the modern medical landscape.
EM was past president of the National Medical Association and active with the American Cancer Society, National Institutes of Health, Royal College of Physicians in London, and many other organizations. She won the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s 2023 Distinguished Service Award.
Also in 2023, a worldwide group of cancer research centers renamed its award for minority trainees the “Edith Peterson Mitchell Health Equity Travel Scholarships.”
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This career story is based on an obituary written by Gary Miles, published by The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper on February 4, 2024, plus internet research.
