"Dr. Helen Nash"

A meharry Medical School graduate and Spelman alumna,became the first black pediatrician at

St.Louis Children's Hospital in 1949.As a child Dr.Nash held an interest in science.She was led by her father's footsteps;he was a general practitioner in the Atlanta,Ga.are.Despite her interest,her father was against her decision to attend medical school.She was encouraged by her father,who was a social worker,to be sure she was treated fairly in school.Dr.Helen Nash.Graduated from Meharry Medical School  in 1945.She began her training like many black physicians of the time,at historic Homer G. Philips hospital in St.Louis,Missouri.At Homer G.Philips,Dr.Nash immediately lobbied to the all-male hospital to increase the number of hand washing stations at the hospital and provide new incubators for the newborns.The change drastically reduced the rate of infections and premature mortality rates.Her other missions included the approval of air conditioning at the facility.She would work with the city mayor to decrease the amount of car batteries leaking lead in the local dumpster to improve air and life quality in the community.Dr.Nash was an advocate of child abuse prevention services,and was instrumental in the policy changes that led to physicians reporting mistreatment of children by parents or caretakers.In another instance,she once again worked with the mayor to increase the budget for rat eradication after seeing many patients with rat bites.Her work led to a new job at St.Louis Children's hospital.She was the first black female pediatrician.Dr.Nash quickly changed the nursery policy to seperate newborns rather than allowing them to sleep in groups.The rate of infection,once again,drastically decreased.Her distinguished peformance led to an invitation to join the staff at the Washington University School of Medicine.She was the first black woman to receive this honor.As the first black pediatrician in a white-male dominated practice,Dr.Nash would see the discrimination against her on the patients charts,written by other doctors.When she admitted her first patient to Children's Hospital,who was a little girl with typhoid,she found a note on the girl's chart from a white doctor that read,"too bad [Dr.Nash] started treating the patient,because now we'd never know what she had."The comment was a deliberate accusaation that Dr.Nash was improperly diagnosing her patients.She passed away in October 2012 at 91.