Chinn, May Edward (1896–1980)
Chinn, May Edward (1896–1980)
African-American physician and scholar. Born April 15, 1896, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts; died Dec 1, 1980; only child of William Lafayette Chinn (son of a slave and white plantation owner) and Lulu Ann Chinn (dau. of a Chickahominy Indian mother and slave father); attended New York's Bellevue Medical College (now New York University Medical College) and New York Post-Graduate Hospital Medical School; Columbia University, MA in public health, 1933.
One of the 1st African-American women in New York City to practice medicine, was also the 1st African-American woman to earn a medical degree at Bellevue; served as 1st AfricanAmerican Harlem Hospital female intern and ambulance crew member; opened private practice in Harlem (1928) and worked night shift at adjacent Edgecombe Sanitorium; became 1st African-American female with admitting privileges to Harlem Hospital (1940); worked with Dr. George Papanicolaou on invention of Pap smear (1928–33); worked at Dr. Elise L'Esperance Strang's cancer clinics (1944–75) and at New York Infirmary for Women and Children (1945–56); founded Susan Smith McKinney Steward Medical Society (1975); retired from medicine (1977).