Surgeons' Color Line

The American College of Surgeons, to which nearly all U.S. surgeons would like to belong, has 13,000 members. One of them is a Negro: Harlem's Louis Tompkins Wright, a specialist in skull surgery who was admitted in 1934. Last week another Harlem surgeon, George D. Thome, graduate of Howard University

Medical School, had the medical world in a mild uproar because, he announced, A.C.S. had turned him down.

The New York County Medical Society (which, like most Northern medical societies, admits Negroes) protested. So did Dr. Wright. The crusading press attacked A.C.S. editorially and a New York assemblyman prepared a resolution to invoke the state's new anti-race-discrimination law.

Sydenham Hospital, of which Dr. Thorne is a staff member, pointed out that it could not promote him without violating an un written law of grade A hospitals -- that only A.C.S. members or specialists who are diplomates of the American Board of Surgery may hold high surgical staff jobs.

No A.C.S. rule forbids admittance of Negroes, retorted the College's Associate Director Malcolm T. MacEachern in Chicago. "It is strictly and entirely a matter of professional qualifications. If Dr. Thorne is properly qualified, he can be admitted." Ambiguously, he added that a committee of the College is studying the question of admitting Negroes. Dr. Thorne cannot get an application form until the committee reports and the College acts. In any case, no new members will be elected until autumn.

Associate Director Bowman C. Crowell was not ambiguous at all. He frankly conceded that many Negro surgeons come up to A.C.S. educational standards, that color is the only bar. He is borne out by the fact that several Negroes hold diplomas from the American Board of Surgery, a rating based on ability as demonstrated by examination.

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