Virginia M. Alexander

Alexander founded the Aspiranto Health Home in her renovated house in 1930.[1] The two purposes of the creation of the practice were to provide healthcare to those who needed it but were otherwise not getting it, and to be able to provide care in a manner that was unconventional at the time.[6] Aspiranto provided "socialized" health services to African American community members in North Philadelphia.[3] Her work in private practice helped to fund Alexander's charitable medical care. Services provided by Aspiranto, often free of cost, included general medical care, obstetric care, and emergency medical care.[3] Since the majority of her clients were low-income, Alexander made less money than white men in the same area who were able to make a lot more.[6] Alexander's colleague Helen Octavia Dickens was also an active practitioner at the house.[1]

Alexander was active in a variety of different social, professional, and academic organizations. She practiced medicine at Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Nurses' Training School, the Hospital of Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Hospital, and performed administrative work at Convalescent Hospital.[1]

In 1931, Alexander officially became a Quaker. She would go on to use her position in white Quaker circles to push her cause of improved public health practice for African American patients.[3]

In her community, Alexander was active on the board of Wharton Settlement, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Religious Society of Friends, where she was active in the Race Relations Committee, the Institute of Race Relations, and the Young Friends Movement.[2]

Alexander brought social and economic determinants of health to the attention of her white peers, who had not previously considered them to disproportionately impact Black Americans.[4] She began formal study of public health disparities for black and white patients in Philadelphia in 1935 as part of her involvement with the Institute of Race Relations (see "Publications").[3] Alexander observed disparate conditions for Black patients such as a lack of recreation facilities, racist treatment at hospitals, and the exclusion of Black physicians from working in hospitals.[6] Alexander also recorded disparities in health outcomes: she found that Black babies died at over twice the rate of white babies, and Black patients died of tuberculosis at over six times the rate of white patients.[4] During this time period, Alexander received funding from the Rosenwald Foundation, which she used to found the North Philadelphia Clinical Centre.[6]

During World War II, Alexander volunteered as a public health physician in Birmingham, Alabama, through the US Department of Health, where the majority of her patients were iron and coal miners.[6] She also worked as an Ob-Gyn at the Woman's Medical College Hospital, Mercy Hospital, and Pennsylvania Hospital.[6] Eventually, Alexander would go on to teach at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania and work as the Physician-in-Charge of Women Students at Howard University.[6]

The field of public health gained popularity in the years leading up to World War II, and Alexander was one of the first people to acquire a master's degree in public health.[6] Alexander was admitted to Yale University in 1936 to study public health, where she earned her degree in 1937.[1] Shortly after leaving Yale, she accepted a position at Howard University as an assistant university physician for women students.[3]

Alexander worked with the US Public Health Service from 1943 to 1945 at the Slossfield Clinic located in Birmingham, Alabama. Afterwards, she returned to Philadelphia where she resumed her medical practice in addition to working with local Quakers on race relations.[3]