My name is First Name Last Name. I am a nursing student at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina. I am applying to the REAL (Ready to Experience Applied Learning) trip to Washington, D.C. because this opportunity will allow me to experience the world and gain a better understanding of what other parts of the country are like outside of the South. I know that there is a much broader and bigger world out there besides where I live and go to school and I am grateful that the REAL (Ready to Experience Applied Learning) program at FMU extends this opportunity to its students.

Since my major is nursing, I have a keen interest in other African-Americans who have excelled in the field of medicine. Several African-Americans received medical degrees during the Civil War era and one of them was Alexander Thomas Augusta. While he was not admitted to a medical school in the United States, he went on to Canada and got his education. He received his surgeon’s commission in the infantry and in 1868 was the only African-American on the faculty of Howard Medical College when it opened. The Howard University College of Medicine is in Washington, D.C. In 1877, he left there and started his own private medical practice also located in Washington, D.C. Nearly thirteen years later, he died and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Also, Charles Burleigh Purvis practiced medicine at the Contraband Hospital in Washington, D.C., in the last few months during the Civil War. In 1869, similar to Augusta, he became only the second African-American doctor on the faculty of Howard Medical College. He served there for fifty-four years including as chief of surgery. Alpheus W. Tucker also worked in the Contraband Hospital in Washington, D.C. He applied for membership in the District of Columbia Medical Society but was denied in 1869.

The inventions and discoveries of African-Americans in the field of medicine are rarely topics of discussion in high schools and colleges across the country. Yet many have contributed significantly to American society and have helped to advance medical ingenuity and creativity. Traveling to Washington, D.C., will help me to experience and learn about this very rich culture. I believe that gaining more understanding from others who have walked the path before me will place me in a better position to advance my medical career here at FMU and when I graduate. It will also inspire me to make a different in my community by putting what I learn to good use to help resolve some of the medical problems faced in the African-American community and in society at large. For me, stepping outside of South Carolina, even if for a short time, is not about getting away from familiarity, but more about gaining a national perspective and worldview and being able to take what I learn and apply it to my current studies.

• Harold E. Farmer, “An Account of the Earliest Colored Gentlemen in Medical Science in the United States,” Bull. Hist. Med. 8:559-618 (1940)
• Dalyce Newby, Anderson Ruffin Abbott: First Afro-Canadian Doctor (Markham, Ontario, Canada: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1998)
• Robert Slawson, Prologue to Change: African Americans in Medicine in the Civil War Era (Frederick, MD: NMCWM Press, 2006).
• Perrottet, T. The National Museum of Health and Medicine. (2011). SmithsonianMag.com. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-national-museum-of-health-and-medicine-161045363/