Dr. James D. Griffin

Dr. James D. Griffin is the first Black graduate of the University of Texas Southwestern’s medical school to join the school’s faculty, as well as the chief of Anesthesiology at Parkland Health, a hospital located in Dallas, Texas. Griffin made even more history, recently he was elected as the first Black president of the medical staff at Parkland Health.

Griffin, as NBC DFW reported, shares a special connection with Parkland; he was born in the hospital’s segregated wing in 1958. In an interview with the outlet, Griffin reflected on that history and his parents, who he says pushed him to believe in himself, beyond the limits that society placed on Black people in the Jim Crow South. “To be born at Parkland in a time when my mother could not receive health care in any other hospital was important. At that time, Parkland’s maternity ward was segregated so the African American babies were born in one part of the hospital and everyone else was born somewhere else,” Griffin said.

Griffin continued, praising the values his parents instilled in him, “We never talked about what we couldn’t do. It was always based in faith on what was possible if we put our minds to it.” By Daniel Johnson