by Rob Taylor Jr.
Courier Staff Writer
In a field dominated by White males, Velma P. Scantlebury-White, M.D., adept with the surgical knife, has carved her own space in history.
She is the nation’s first African American female transplant surgeon, and as many New Pittsburgh Courier readers know, her connection to Pittsburgh is plentiful.
But for the millenials, or newcomers to the Courier, let’s revisit the story of Dr. Scantlebury-White.
Born in Barbados in 1955, her family moved to New York City in 1970. After graduating from high school, Dr. Scantlebury-White attended Long Island University-Brooklyn, graduating with honors and degrees in biology and pre-med. Next, she attended Columbia University, earning a medical degree. She then completed an internship and residency in general surgery at Harlem Hospital Center, and had fellowship training in transplantation surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Scantlebury-White then joined Pitt’s School of Medicine staff in 1989, eventually becoming an associate professor of surgery at Pitt.
In 2002, she left Pittsburgh to become professor of surgery and assistant dean for community education for the University of Southern Alabama. She’s now the associate director of the Kidney Transplant Program for the Christiana Care Health System, in Delaware.
August is National Minority Donor Awareness Month
Millenials, there you have it! …
…Of course, it wasn’t that easy. Nothing, especially breaking barriers like Dr. Scantlebury-White did, comes easy.
Like leaving your home country, at age 14. But that’s what Dr. Scantlebury-White and her mother did. Dr. Scantlebury-White told the Transplant Journal in 2008 that her mother had a passion for education, and felt that there were more educational opportunities in the States than Barbados.
“Attending high school in Brooklyn was a tremendous culture shock! I had few friends, was unfamiliar with the curriculum, and taking multiple-choice tests,” Dr. Scantlebury-White said. “Our testing in Barbados was more problem solving and essay writing, with subjects as English Literature, Latin, Scripture, and European history. I learned to stifle my desire to learn because if you were timid like I was, you were beaten up and forced to do other students homework!”
Her parents were adamant about her going to college, but didn’t have the money to pay for it. But Dr. Scantlebury-White was awarded a full scholarship to Long Island University-Brooklyn. At Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, she said she was was “smitten by surgery the minute we started our gross anatomy class during the first year. Oh, what excitement to be able to do dissections, learn about the different muscles, nerves and the ability to cure someone just by surgery. This was where you could find me late at night—in the anatomy laboratory, learning from our cadaver, Suzy, as we called her.”
In 1986, Dr. Scantlebury-White had an interview at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (now UPMC Children’s). “I met with Dr. Mark Ravitch,” she recalled in the interview with Transplant Journal. “He suggested a two-year research fellowship in transplantation with Dr. Thomas Starzl. This would give me that competitive edge to get into the pediatric fellowship program in Pittsburgh. I came to Pittsburgh and ended up as a transplant surgeon instead.”
Dr. Starzl, known as the “father of modern transplantation,” was a world-renowned figure in the profession, as physician and researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, who died in 2017. To say that Dr. Scantlebury-White learned from the best isn’t hyperbolic.
“As a fellow, you were either flying out to retrieve organs or doing a complicated transplant with one of the senior attendings,” she said in her interview. “Back in those days, some patients felt uncomfortable with having a Black female surgeon. I had to learn to not feel rejected because of their ignorance, but to embrace my skills, and realize it was their loss by not having me as their surgeon. On several occasions, the senior attending would make it clear that I would be the operating surgeon. Many of these patients later stayed in touch with me for many years after their transplant. I had won them over by saving their lives.”
In 1989, it became official. Dr. Scantlebury-White earned her Doctor of Surgery, thus becoming the first Black female transplant surgeon in the U.S. Married to Harvey White, Ph.D., many in Pittsburgh’s Black community would see the White family and their two daughters attending church at St. James A.M.E. on Lincoln Avenue, and at other family-friendly functions.
“It was not until my third year in Pittsburgh as a junior attending that word spread about me being the first Black female transplant surgeon,” Dr. Scantlebury-White said to Transplant Journal. “Realizing that there were no others before me was a daunting acknowledgement: many women had paid a price for freedom, to get an education, to attend medical school, and even to become a surgeon. I was now a transplant surgeon—first in my family to attend college, and first to be a Black transplant surgeon. Such a status never meant much to my parents, I was just following God’s plan for my life.”
Velma Scantlebury-White, M.D., America’s first Black female transplant surgeon.
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