Structural Racism: St. Philip Hospital and School of Nursing
Overview
The Racial Equity series provides the link between history and current day health inequities and disparities experienced by people in our community. This educational content was donated by the History and Health programming at the VCU Office of Health Initiatives.
Assessing Structural Racism by Understanding St. Philip Hospital and School of Nursing
Between 1920 and 1962, St. Philip Hospital served as MCV’s segregated hospital for Richmond’s Black community. In 1920, MCV also established the St. Philip School of Nursing to provide nursing training to Black women, who then provided nursing services to Black patients at the St. Philip Hospital. The MCV School of Nursing admitted its first Black student in 1957, and the St. Philip School graduated its final class of Black nursing students in 1962. By 1965 all MCV hospitals had begun to admit non-emergency Black patients.
Objectives
- Describe the relevance and importance of the history of St. Philip Hospital and School of Nursing for healthcare providers today.
- Explain how structural racism has continued to harm people of color living in the City of Richmond.
- Identify ways in which VCU Health team members will actively strive to minimize the impact of structural racism in patient care (required only for those pursuing CME credits).
- Recognize the variables contributing to structural racism in their workplace.
St. Philip School of Nursing
As part of a video recorded during Reunion Weekend in 2012 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the St. Philip School of Nursing’s closing, alumnae shared recollections about their education at the school and their careers as nurses during the 20th century. You can hear these recollections by watching The Legacy of St. Philip School of Nursing below.
Timeline
Expansion, but separate
The St. Philip School of Nursing and hospital expanded simultaneously but separately from MCV until racial integration.
Read the excerpt from Medical Monopoly: Twentieth Century Expansion of MCV chronicles the history
Lessons from St. Philip
As part of the 50th anniversary closing of one of the first African American nursing schools in Virginia, Richmond Magazine published a piece entitled, Lessons from St. Philip.
Arlethia Rogers, president of the Richmond chapter of the St. Philip Alumni Association, holds a picture of the St. Philip class of 1933.
Explore More
Remembering St. Philip: A panel discussion. (July 2019). 39-minute YouTube video. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Commonwealth University.
Lacy, M. W., and Pinala W.M. (1978). A historical bulletin of the Saint Philip School of Nursing and alumnae. [Richmond, Va.]: Saint Philip Alumnae Association.
Nursing Oral Histories .VCU Libraries Special Collections and Archives
In the Shadow of Killer King .(2021). 19-minute Code Switch podcast that describes how discrimination in health care funding policy since the 1970s has resulted in lower quality health outcomes for Black Americans, including the differential impact of Covid-19 on communities of color.
Remembering St. Philip Recording
VCU Online hosted a 39 minute panel discussion that explored the history of St. Philip Hospital and St. Philip School of Nursing.
"Have you seen the nurse?" Recording
Tori Tucker, RN, PhD, VCU Health System; Residential Fellow, Humanities Research Center speaks with St. Philip School of Nursing Alumnae Mary Gilbert Holmes, RN and Burlette Cooke Trent, RN in this Living Legacies event. Introduction by Stephan Davis, DNP, MHSA, FACHE, FAAN, College of Health Professions & School of Nursing. This video is 1 hour and 19 minutes.
About the Speakers
Victoria Tucker, RN, PhD, with VCU Health, is a Residential Fellow at the Humanities Research Center, 2023-24, and a member of the HRC Health Humanities Lab. Tucker is an interdisciplinary scholar and palliative care nurse whose research engages the history of nursing and health care; race and education in the South; and public history. She uses oral histories to examine the important but largely unchronicled moment at the intersection of American and nursing history: the experiences and contributions of Black nurses in Virginia during the transition from segregation to desegregation.
Mary Gilbert Holmes, RN is a Piedmont Sanitorium ’57 and St. Philip ‘59 graduate. Holmes worked as a head nurse at UVA Hospital in the early 1960s, a staff nurse at Lynchburg General Hospital, and as a Public Health nurse for the Lynchburg Health Department. She was the recent recipient of the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities’ 2021 Humanitarian Award (Lynchburg, Virginia).
Burlette Cooke Trent, RN is a St. Philip ’54 graduate, she worked at Dooley Hospital caring for pediatric patients and as a head nurse at Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Trent retired from the Veterans Affair Medical Center after nearly thirty years of distinguished leadership and service.
Stephan Davis, DNP, MHSA, FACHE, FAAN is Executive Director for Inclusive Leadership Education and Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Belonging in the College of Health Professions, as well as Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at Virginia Commonwealth University. Davis is the inaugural executive director of inclusive leadership education for the Department of Health Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Co-sponsors: The Office of Health Equity, Humanities Research Center, HRC Health Humanities Lab, VCU Health, School of Medicine, and the School of Nursing.
This module was authored by Lynn Pelco, Ph.D., former associate vice provost for community engagement and now a senior scholar in the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) at the University of Richmond. All modules undergo a rigorous curriculum peer reviewal process.