COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
Q & A with Dr. Eleby R. Washington,
Professor and Chairman, Charles R. Drew University Department of Surgery
Interviewed by Dr. Lance A. Williams, Editor
Dr. Eleby Washington, III. describes the practice of medicine as a family business. Rightly so: Eleby, Jr. was a Howard University-trained surgeon. Eleby, III. spent his undergraduate years at Brown University and attended Columbia University Medical School. He stayed in the Columbia system for his residency. He also completed a fellowship at Cornell University Hospital for Special Surgery.
Interviewer: What attracted you first to medicine, then particularly to surgery?
Dr. Washington: The family business was medicine. When I was in college at Brown University, I played on the basketball team, but I also started the Black pre-med society. So I always had an eye toward medicine.
Interviewer: Are there special areas of need that affect African American patients?
Dr. Washington: My focus, even in my research activities, has always been centered around issues concerning the African-American population. My early research was done with sickle cell disease and its effect on the musculoskeletal system. Even as I came out to California my work was centered on what was happening in our community as it related to orthopedic surgery. I wrote about the psychiatric problems that arise from violence toward children, alcoholism in orthopedics, and psychiatric issues in our community.
Interviewer: What is your specialization as a medical practitioner?
Dr. Washington: I was trained as a pediatric orthopedic surgeon. When I originally came out to California, I was asked to join the faculty at King / Drew Medical Center to teach pediatric orthopedic surgery in the residency program, which I did for about twenty years.
Interviewer: Is there a professional preparation for teaching others, or is your teaching an outgrowth of what you ve practiced?
Dr. Washington: It’ s pretty natural in the medical field that you train the people that come behind you, because you’ ve been trained by the people that have come before you. And if you’ re lucky enough to have good teachers, a lot of times you will be lucky enough to become a good teacher, and impart knowledge in the way that you ' ve been successfully taught.
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