DR. WHO?
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT DR. EUGENE GILES, MD
Aaron Burch
“ I
was
asked me was,‘ What did I want to be when I was grown?’
five years old. It was a Saturday. We lived in the country in Mississippi at the time. One of the last questions my mom
And I said physician,” Dr. Eugene Giles remembered.“ I didn’ t know for sure what a physician was, but that came out of my mouth. She died that afternoon from complications of childbirth. Not long after, my aunt and uncle adopted me and my sister.”
Dr. Giles has come a long way from the little boy who made a promise to be a doctor in April 1961, but he kept that promise. Through years of hard work, persistence and patience, Dr. Giles achieved that and more: opening the Omni Medical Center,( his very own health care facility in west Louisville) and devoting his life to God as an Associate Minister at the West Chestnut Street Baptist Church. But, before he could achieve his goals, he had some growing up to do first.
Oscar and Alice Giles took Eugene and his sister, Mabel, into their home in Indianola, Mississippi, after his mother, Minnie Giles Monet, died. Growing up in the country, the young Dr. Giles was far behind where he needed to be for grade school. The school gave his new parents a decision to make. They could choose to flunk Eugene to give him a year to acclimate, or he could pass and double his efforts to catch up to the class over the summer.
“ My aunt chose to pass me. She home schooled me over the summer for four or five years. We’ d stay up at night studying, and she got me there,” said Dr. Giles.“ I was always still insisting that I’ d be a doctor. People said that was crazy. There were no black doctors in Mississippi, no black role models like that. The only options were teacher, preacher or laborer. But my aunt always told me I could be whatever I wanted to, and she’ d always be there to help me along the way.”
To get into medical school is always a tall order, and it was no different for Eugene Giles. To prepare, he started by reading anything he could get his hands on.“ I was a bookworm. I knew you had to read well to pass the ACT, so I read everything I could. I’ d go to different peoples’ houses and read their books and magazines while I was there.”
When he wasn’ t reading, Dr. Giles was playing music: trumpet in the school band, and piano lessons on the side. Soon he was playing piano for churches and youth events.
Once he was graduated from high school, Dr. Giles enrolled at Tennesee State University in Nashville for his pre-med courses. In their offer to him, TSU mentioned that those who graduated near the top of the class were almost 100 percent of the time accepted to Meharry Medical College, also in Nashville.
“ So I knew that if I did well, I was going to medical school. I knew what had to be done,” said Dr. Giles smiling.“ When I got to Tennesee State, I sat down with my advisor, whose name was Mrs. Exum, and she wanted me to take these remedial classes because I was from a small school in Mississippi. Her thinking was that I wouldn’ t be able to compete with kids from private schools or schools from big cities.”
But Dr. Giles wasn’ t ready to change his plans, and he knew he
Editor’ s Note: Welcome to Louisville Medicine’ s member spotlight section, Dr. Who? In the interest of simply getting to know each other as a society of colleagues, we’ ll be highlighting random GLMS physicians on a regular basis. If you would like to recommend any GLMS physician member to the Editorial Board for this section, please e-mail aaron. burch @ glms. org or call him at 736-6338.
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