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Memories of Charity Hospital
CLINICAL COMMUNICATION TO THE EDITOR
Memories of Charity Hospital To the Editor: I served as a faculty attending physician on the Tulane Teaching Service at Charity Hospital in New Orleans from
Figure 1 The main entrance to Charity Hospital. The aluminum mural over the main entrance was crafted by New Orleans artist Enrique Alferez for the “New” Charity Hospital that opened in 1939. It was titled, “Louisianans at Work and Play,” and contains what came to be known as “de Duck in de Aluminum Grill.” At 3 o’clock in the center panel is a baseball player with an incongruous duck flying over his head (magnified in inset). This duck was Alferez’s memorial to the “deductions” Huey P. Long and his cronies made from the paychecks of state employees and the flapping motions they made with their hands when they got them. The duck was saved by reporters from the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, who caught a worker dispatched by Long’s entourage trying to saw it off.
0002-9343/$ -see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Figure 2 Signs of Charity Hospital. Signs were posted throughout Charity Hospital. I categorize them as prohibitions (A), instructions (B), directions (C), and precautions (D). The Tulane and Louisiana State University Medical School contingents protected their turf, including parking, at Charity at all costs. In one parking area, tombstones were used to communicate messages about who should park where and what might happen if one parked in the wrong place (E).
1980 to 1989. When I came to New Orleans, the late John Salvaggio, MD, who became my colleague and department chair, was busy writing his book, New Orleans Charity Hospital. A Story of Physicians, Politics and Poverty.1 His knowledge of Charity’s history and its contributions to American medicine interested me in the culture of that 250-year-old institution. My first observations of Charity were of the visual messages, hidden or otherwise, throughout the facility. Now that Charity is closed forever as a hospital after the 2005 Katrina catastrophe, it may be time
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The American Journal of Medicine, Vol 121, No 7, July 2008
Figure 3 Charity scenes. The emergency entrance to Charity (A) was bookended by original freezes also crafted by Enrique Alferez. The Daughter’s of Charity of Saint Vincent DePaul took over management Charity Hospital at the request of the Charity administration shortly after the 1833 Charity facility was opened. The imposing image celebrates the legacy of Sister Stanislaus (B), Charity’s most famous administrator, and hung in the foyer of the hospital to greet patients and visitors. She retired with great fanfare after 63 years of service in 1945. The watchful eyes of Sister Stanislaus were unfortunately unable to the control pilfering that was rampant in the hospital. This necessitated innovations, including encasing the soft drink machines in chain mail (C).
to share some of them. Although some of the images shown here may be humorous (Figures 1-3), they are in no way meant to diminish the great good, sacrifice, and commitment of those who served there. Charity might be dilapidated and in decay, but I share pride in the caregiver–patient interactions that could not be photographed and made such a difference for so many.
Richard D. deShazo, MD Department of Medicine University of Mississippi Medical Center Jackson
doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2008.02.030
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Reference
I thank Michael Anderson, MD, who helped me take the photographs, and William Buhner and Leigh Wright who helped with the illustrations.
1. Salvaggio J. New Orleans Charity Hospital. A Story of Physicians, Politics and Poverty. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press; 1992.
Memories of Charity Hospital To the Editor: I served as a faculty attending physician on the Tulane Teaching Service at Charity Hospital in New Orleans from
Figure 1 The main entrance to Charity Hospital. The aluminum mural over the main entrance was crafted by New Orleans artist Enrique Alferez for the “New” Charity Hospital that opened in 1939. It was titled, “Louisianans at Work and Play,” and contains what came to be known as “de Duck in de Aluminum Grill.” At 3 o’clock in the center panel is a baseball player with an incongruous duck flying over his head (magnified in inset). This duck was Alferez’s memorial to the “deductions” Huey P. Long and his cronies made from the paychecks of state employees and the flapping motions they made with their hands when they got them. The duck was saved by reporters from the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, who caught a worker dispatched by Long’s entourage trying to saw it off.
0002-9343/$ -see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Figure 2 Signs of Charity Hospital. Signs were posted throughout Charity Hospital. I categorize them as prohibitions (A), instructions (B), directions (C), and precautions (D). The Tulane and Louisiana State University Medical School contingents protected their turf, including parking, at Charity at all costs. In one parking area, tombstones were used to communicate messages about who should park where and what might happen if one parked in the wrong place (E).
1980 to 1989. When I came to New Orleans, the late John Salvaggio, MD, who became my colleague and department chair, was busy writing his book, New Orleans Charity Hospital. A Story of Physicians, Politics and Poverty.1 His knowledge of Charity’s history and its contributions to American medicine interested me in the culture of that 250-year-old institution. My first observations of Charity were of the visual messages, hidden or otherwise, throughout the facility. Now that Charity is closed forever as a hospital after the 2005 Katrina catastrophe, it may be time
e4
The American Journal of Medicine, Vol 121, No 7, July 2008
Figure 3 Charity scenes. The emergency entrance to Charity (A) was bookended by original freezes also crafted by Enrique Alferez. The Daughter’s of Charity of Saint Vincent DePaul took over management Charity Hospital at the request of the Charity administration shortly after the 1833 Charity facility was opened. The imposing image celebrates the legacy of Sister Stanislaus (B), Charity’s most famous administrator, and hung in the foyer of the hospital to greet patients and visitors. She retired with great fanfare after 63 years of service in 1945. The watchful eyes of Sister Stanislaus were unfortunately unable to the control pilfering that was rampant in the hospital. This necessitated innovations, including encasing the soft drink machines in chain mail (C).
to share some of them. Although some of the images shown here may be humorous (Figures 1-3), they are in no way meant to diminish the great good, sacrifice, and commitment of those who served there. Charity might be dilapidated and in decay, but I share pride in the caregiver–patient interactions that could not be photographed and made such a difference for so many.
Richard D. deShazo, MD Department of Medicine University of Mississippi Medical Center Jackson
doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2008.02.030
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Reference
I thank Michael Anderson, MD, who helped me take the photographs, and William Buhner and Leigh Wright who helped with the illustrations.
1. Salvaggio J. New Orleans Charity Hospital. A Story of Physicians, Politics and Poverty. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press; 1992.