Pauline E. Dinkins
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December 30, 1891
Pauline E. Dinkins | |
|---|---|
 Pauline E. Dinkins, from a 1929 publication | |
| Born | Pauline Elizabeth Dinkins December 30, 1891 Marion, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | March 6, 1961 (age 69) Selma, Alabama, U.S. |
| Occupations | Physician, medical missionary |
Pauline Elizabeth Dinkins (December 30, 1891 – March 6, 1961) was an American physician and medical educator from Selma, Alabama, who worked as a missionary in Liberia in 1928 and 1929. She also published a book, African Folk Tales (1933), illustrated by the poet Effie Lee Newsome.
Dinkins was born in Marion, Alabama,[1] the daughter of Rev. Charles Spencer Dinkins and Pauline Elizabeth Sears Dinkins. Her father, who was born into slavery, was the president of Selma University.[2] Her brother William H. Dinkins was also president of Selma University.[3] She graduated from Selma University in 1906, and Hartshorn Memorial College in 1911. She earned her medical degree at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1917.[4][5] She pursued further studies at the London School of Tropical Medicine in 1927 and 1928.[6]
Career
Dinkins was resident physician at Tuskegee Institute from 1924 to 1925, and head of the Brewer Hospital and Nurse Training School in Greenwood, South Carolina.[7][8] "Through the wards of a hospital, a community is blessed; through its training school, many communities are blessed," she explained in 1927.[9] She became a medical missionary in 1928, as medical director of a Baptist hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, working with American nurse Ruth E. Occomy.[10][11]
Dinkins's missionary work was cut short by illness,[12] and she returned to the United States to recover in 1929.[13] She conducted a private practice in Selma for over twenty years, and was a resident physician at John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital.[1] In 1931, she donated $500 to build a missionary hospital in West Africa.[14] In 1949 she was honored by Color magazine as one of the "outstanding Negro women who made their mark in 1948."[3]
Publications
- "Soul Sick" (1924, poem in a medical journal)[15]
- "Sarcoma of Superior Maxillary Bone and Pellagra" (1925, article)
- "The Student's Health" (1926, article)[16]
- African Folk Tales (1933, book, illustrated by Effie Lee Newsome)[17]
- "When" (1941, poem)
Dinkins's book African Folk Tales (1933) was re-released in 2002,[1] edited by her niece, Pauline Dinkins Anderson,[18] a noted organist and music educator in Selma.[19] Dinkins wrote professional articles for the Medical Woman's Journal in the 1940s.[20]