Dr. Helen Octavia Dickens (February 2,1909-December 2,2001)

Born in Dayton Ohio,to Charles and Daisy Green Dickens she graduated from Roosevelt High School,she attended Crane Junior College in Chicago,Illinois.Helen was a 1934 graduated of the University of  Illinois School Medicine,the only African-American in graduating class.Helen spent two years after graduating at Provident Hospital in Chicago in Chicago,and then practiced with Dr.Virginia Alexander in a birthing-home practice in North Philadelphia.In 1943 Helen attended the Penn Graduate School of Medicine for one year concentrating on obstetrics and gynecology.In 1945,she became the first female African-American board-certified ob-gyn in Philadelphia.In same year, she became director of the department of obstetrics and gynecology in the school of  Medicine in 1956 when Penn acquired Women's Hospital.At that time she was the first African-American woman to serve in this position.She was also professor of obstetrics and gynecology.In 1967 Helen founded the Teen Clinic at Penn for School-age mothers in the inner city.The Clinic included counseling and group therapy,educational classes,family planing assistance,and prenatal care.She also initiated a project that brought temporary cancer detection facilities into Philadelphia's inner city.She also instigated a program funded by the NIH that encouraged doctors to perform pap smears to test for cervical cancer.In 1969 Helen was named associate dean for minority admissions.She helped recruit African-Americans to the medical school and was responsible for increasing minority numbers from three students to 64.Helen was a number of the Pan American Medical Women's Association and its president from 1968-1970.In 1982,Helen received and honory degree from Penn.She was also a member of the board of directors for the American Cancer Society,the children's Aid Society and the Devereaux Foundation.She was also the recipient of many awards including the Gimbel Philadelphia Award for "outstanding service to humanity,"the Medical Woman of the Year,Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania;Daisy Lumpkin Award;the mercy Douglass Hospital Award;and the Sadie Alexander Award for community service by Delta Sigma Theta.In 1991,she received the faculty/staff award at Penn's Women of Color celebration where their most prestigious award was named for Dr.Dickens.Known as the Dr.Helen O. Dickens Lifetime Achievement Award,it is awarded to exemplary candidates with a long history of service to Women of Color in the Penn and Delaware Valley communities.She also received the Family Planing Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania Award for her "lifelong contributions to women's health care both as an outstanding teacher-clinician and as a pioneer in programing to assist teen-aged mother to region to complete their "education in 1995.The Helen O.Dickens Center for Women's Health at HUP was named for Dr.Dickens in 1999 in honor of the 50 years she dedicated to healing,helping and guilding women of all ages.Her daughter Jayne Brown;son,Norman S.Henderson,and three grandchildren survive her.