Dr. Beny Primm, Pioneer in AIDS Prevention, Dies at 87

[MADem]

An American hero has passed on--what a career, what an amazing guy, and what a beginning he had!! To go to medical school, NOT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK THE LANGUAGE!!

Damn!!!!


Dr. Beny J. Primm, left, with Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York, center, and Dr. Bertram S. Brown, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, in an undated photo. As mayor, Mr. Lindsay secured money used by Dr. Primm to open a methadone clinic in Brooklyn in 1969.

.....Beny Jene Primm was born on May 21, 1928, in the coal town of Williamson, W.Va. His father and uncle owned a funeral home, and his mother taught in a one-room schoolhouse in a nearby town. Because of the family business, local doctors often visited, and from early childhood Beny set his sights on entering the medical profession.

In 1941, the family moved to the Bronx, where Beny attended DeWitt Clinton High School. He was an indifferent student and, after failing the state Regents exam twice, graduated with a general rather than an academic diploma in 1945.

At West Virginia State University, a historically black institution near Charleston, he improved only slightly as a student but thrived in the R.O.T.C. After graduating in 1950, he was assigned to the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg and trained as a paratrooper.

With lackluster academic credentials, he looked outside the United States for a medical school after leaving the Army in 1953. Having studied German in college, he enrolled in the Heidelberg University but, for financial reasons, left after a year.

Without knowing French, he entered the University of Geneva, where he received a medical certificate and, in order to practice in the United States, the more advanced diploma in 1959. To satisfy the requirements for a diploma, he wrote a thesis on the effects of morphine and chlorpromazine on hypothermia in guinea pigs.

While studying in Geneva he had an externship at Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx in obstetrics and gynecology, which he greatly enjoyed. As a resident at Meadowbrook Hospital on Long Island, however, he found that many white patients did not want to be treated by a black doctor. He became an anesthesiologist instead, taking a job at Harlem Hospital in 1963....

Worth a read, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/nyregion/dr-beny-primm-pioneer-in-aids-prevention-dies-at-87.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-2&action=click&contentCollection=Health®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=Blogs

[Number23]

1. What an amazing read!

MAD, could you please post this in the "Black History that doesn't make it into the history books" thread? I bet many don't know about Dr. Primm's work on AIDS prevention.

TIA!

[MADem]

2. Done!!

I'll start putting my 'finds' there--this guy was an unsung hero, and there are lots of those out there!