Wilhelm Delano Meriwether Oral History Interview, 2008

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  • Dr. Wilhelm Delano Meriwether speaks about his educational background; coming to Duke University School of Medicine due to the influence of his father; other schools that were integrating their medical schools at the same time; integrating the wards at Duke; women medical students at Duke; the quality of education at Duke; the fairness of the exchange made when he became the first African-American graduate of the Duke University School of Medicine and brought federal monies to the institution; the social developments at Duke and in America; the integration of the wards occurring without his participation; the lack of fanfare at Duke for his being a student in the medical school; his focus primarily on the typical challenges associated with medical school; Dr. Brenda Armstrong's more activist stance as a student at Duke; his thankfulness that his father convinced him to go to Duke; his father's desire that Duke be forced to do what was morally right; society's movement toward social responsibility in the area of global warming; his experience at Duke affecting his later decision to go to South Africa; his work as a physician in South Africa; his ability to take the Duke experience in stride; his desire to be a good doctor as being more important to him than the integration of the medical school; his experiences with research; some of the people he was working with at Duke; following Dr. James Wyngaarden to the University of Pennsylvania for his internship; his knowledge of Dr. Charles Drew; a negative experience in a restaurant just after his admissions interview at Duke; his responses to that negative experience; his preference of the term "liberating an institution" as opposed to "integrating an institution"; and some early patient reactions to him as a physician.
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  • Wilhelm Delano Meriwether Oral History Interview
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