bonus
BONUS: Writing the Life of Dr. Drew
Dr. Charles Drew, a groundbreaking figure in the field of blood transfusion and a pioneer in medical history, deserves far more recognition than he typically receives.
In this bonus episode, we dive deeper into his incredible life and legacy with Dr. Craig Miller, who recently authored a book on Dr. Drew, collaborating closely with his daughter Charlene.
We explore how Drew's impact reverberated through the African American community and discuss the surprising lack of extensive literature about his contributions. Craig shares fascinating insights from his research journey, including some enlightening moments with Charlene as they navigated the delicate balance of memory and history.
We uncover the profound influence Drew had on medicine and society, and why his story is one that should be told and celebrated.
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Special guest for this episode:
- Dr. Craig Miller, an attending vascular surgeon with the United States Veterans Administration, based in Dublin, Ohio. He is also the author of Genius Unbroken: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Charles R. Drew.
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Highlights from this episode:
- Dr. Charles Drew was a pioneering figure in blood transfusion and storage, significantly impacting medical practices today.
- Craig Miller's collaboration with Dr. Drew's daughter, Charlene, was crucial for the accuracy and depth of the biography.
- The podcast episode highlights the surprising lack of resources available about Dr. Drew, despite his monumental contributions to medicine.
- The discussion speculates on the historical influence Dr. Drew could have had if he had lived past 1950, intertwining with major civil rights movements.
- Charlene Drew Jarvis's career as a neuroscientist and political figure shows the lasting legacy of her father's impact on her life.
- The episode underscores the importance of remembering lesser-known historical figures like Dr. Drew, who greatly shaped modern medical practices.
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Additional Resources:
Genius Unbroken: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Charles R. Drew by Craig A. Miller
Craig A. Miller, M.D. | Author & Medical Historian
The life and legacy of Charles Drew, the African American doctor who pioneered blood banks
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Transcript
Hello, and welcome to this bonus episode of A History Recorded straight after our recently published episode.
Speaker A:Who is Dr. Charles Drew?
Speaker A:I'm joined now by the guest from that episode, Dr. Craig Miller, to discuss this a little bit more.
Speaker A:Craig, thank you so much for hanging on.
Speaker B:Thank you, man.
Speaker A:I had such an interesting conversation with you in the main episode, and anyone that hasn't yet listened, please do.
Speaker A:I mean, Charles Drew is just such an incredible and inspiring person.
Speaker A:And I wonder, when did you first learn about him and what compelled you to talk write your book?
Speaker B:Like most physicians, I think certainly in the US I'm familiar with the name.
Speaker B:I was familiar with the name Dr. Drew for a long time, but it was sort of, he's a guy that had something to do with blood.
Speaker B:That's the way I think if I stop the physician on the street right now, that's kind of what the answer that I would get.
Speaker B:What transpired in my case was that I had even before I wrote my last book, which is a biography of Michael Debake, one of the great surgeons of the 20th century.
Speaker B:Cardiovascular surgeon, primarily, people had been.
Speaker B:I've written a couple of other books on surgical history and articles and things.
Speaker B:And some people had come up, Liam, and gotten in my ear and said, why don't you write about Charles Drew?
Speaker B:And I said, well, I'm sure somebody's already written about Charles Drew.
Speaker B:Then when I finished my book on DeBakey, I found out that really nobody had written about Charles Drew.
Speaker B:There were some things for children and so forth, and then a small monograph on him that was written back in the 80s.
Speaker B:I thought, oh, my gosh, this is bad.
Speaker B:Opportunity to tell, as I did the research, to tell the story of someone.
Speaker A:Who richly deserved is really surprising, actually, just how few resources there are about him if people did want to learn more.
Speaker A:So I'm very grateful that you've written the book and taken the time to research it.
Speaker A:And actually you collaborated very closely with his daughter Charlene to write this book, is that right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Charlene Drew Jarvis is a fascinating individual in her own right.
Speaker B:She.
Speaker B:She was a neuroscientist at the NIH for a number of years and then became involved in local Washington politics and kind of pivoted to that for the second half of her career.
Speaker B:And then lastly was a university president, so she's retired now.
Speaker B:But what happened was once I got the idea of potentially writing about Drew, next thing that you do first is see if anyone else has done it.
Speaker B:When I realized no one has.
Speaker B:Well, who is A resource out there who I can immediately tap into, typically a colleague or family member.
Speaker B:And I quickly found that Charlene was still around and was sort of the keeper of the flame.
Speaker B:So I reached out to her and I said, I'd like to write the story of your father.
Speaker B:And as you might imagine, she was slightly defensive about that.
Speaker B:Who exactly are you?
Speaker B:What qualifications do you have?
Speaker B:And so after a little bit of a period, eventually we became close collaborators.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's great that you were able to work so closely with people that knew him, but I wonder if there were any awkward moments when writing the book where you have to balance your editorial integrity with perhaps some of the obvious, slightly personally biased interests of his family, who you were working with.
Speaker B:There were a couple of instances where there weren't things of questionable morality or anything like that, because nothing ever came up like that.
Speaker B:But in terms of documentary of events, sometimes the things that I had and could prove had happened were not exactly what she remembered them.
Speaker B:And then I would be able to present and say, well, actually, here's your father's letter to your mother, dated, blah, blah.
Speaker B:And this is the order of events, not what you remembered it.
Speaker B:Because our memories are just.
Speaker B:They're not designed to be that way.
Speaker B:But that's as far as it ever got.
Speaker B:There were a few of those, so they were fun.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm sure it all turned out well because I believe Charlene, didn't she write the forward to the book?
Speaker B:She did.
Speaker B:And the segments at the very end that detail the sort of what happened to family, to Dr. Drew's children were written by her as well.
Speaker B:And she was.
Speaker B:It could not possibly have written this book without her, which is why she's earned the co author on that.
Speaker B:Because she, as I said, was the keeper of the flame.
Speaker B:And she has at her house all of the original documentation that we used.
Speaker B:It's also at Howard University.
Speaker B:But I didn't have to go there because she still has it and it was a lot easier to do the research there.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:And, you know, he must have had such an enormous influence on.
Speaker A:On her, you know, because she.
Speaker A:She herself went into a medical profession.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Being a neuroscientist.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:She was just a child when he.
Speaker B:When he passed.
Speaker B:I think she was 8 or 9 at the time.
Speaker B:So, you know, her waking memories of him are probably pretty limited, but he's such a towering figure while she was growing up in Washington, D.C. in the African American community.
Speaker B:You know, some.
Speaker B:We talk about him Being rel.
Speaker B:Totally unknown at that time in that community, he was not an obscure figure in the least.
Speaker B:He was a gigantic one.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think, you know, just being related to someone like him must be fill you with a lot of pride, you know, considering the impact he made, especially in such sort of culturally difficult times as well.
Speaker A:There must be a wonderful person to hold up and say, you know, this is my dad, unquestionably.
Speaker B: happens if he doesn't die in: Speaker B:He's only 44 years old.
Speaker B:And all of the things that were coming in the 50s, Rosa Parks, Brown versus Board of Education, Martin Luther King, they were still in the future when he died.
Speaker B:But he would have been a voice in all of that.
Speaker B:And it's interesting to speculate and say you could speculate at length about what sort of an influence.
Speaker B:So that's something that was also a presence in.
Speaker B:In her life and the life of her siblings.
Speaker A:Yeah, of course.
Speaker A:And, you know, everything that we've.
Speaker A:We've discussed about him on the podcast has really been quite mind blowing considering just how little he is, you know, talked about generally, especially, you know, compared to other, you know, huge influential figures of that time.
Speaker A:But, you know, Craig, you've made a bit of a career for yourself of writing sort of biographies of, I guess, people that should be heard of but maybe aren't.
Speaker A:So what are you working on next?
Speaker B:Well, I'm open to suggestions.
Speaker B:I found that when you dive in with both feet into a project like this, that once you're done with it, there's sort of a quiescent period afterwards, at least for me, there is where I just have to chill out for a bit before taking something on.
Speaker B:But there I've had some.
Speaker B:Some people who have been recommended to me as.
Speaker B:As potential things.
Speaker B:Actually, the thing I'm working on right now is completely different from that.
Speaker B:It's a surgical history of the Battle of Gettysburg from our Civil War, which is also surgical history, but in a completely unrelated way.
Speaker B:It's not a major biography.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:Afterwards I'll probably dive back in.
Speaker A:Fascinating, though.
Speaker A:Like, we'll have to get you back on the podcast for something Gettysburg themed sometime.
Speaker B:It's American history.
Speaker A:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker A:You can't get much more American history than the Civil War.
Speaker A:But, Craig, it's been an absolute delight to have you on the podcast and thank you again for joining me.
Speaker A:To anyone that is listening, if you haven't already, do listen to the full episode where we talk about Dr. Drew and the link to everything that we've discussed, including also the book that you can buy right now.
Speaker A:It's all in the show notes.
Speaker A:So do also remember Rate review Follow the show.
Speaker A:That'd be awesome.
Speaker A:Check out the main episode and thank you all for listening and goodbye.
