Lynk, Miles Vandahurst

Impact on the world

His 1892 Medical and Surgical Observer was the first national medical journal published by a Black physician, connecting otherwise isolated Black medical professionals nationwide; the university he and his wife founded with a loan against their own home went on to grant 216 medical, dental, pharmacy, and nursing degrees before closing in 1924.

Life & background

Born to formerly enslaved parents in rural Tennessee, Lynk became Jackson, Tennessee's first Black physician after graduating from Meharry Medical College at just 19. The following year he founded the Medical and Surgical Observer, the first national medical journal published by an African American, which the Library of the Surgeon General's Office labeled the 'Only Negro M.J. in America.' He co-founded the National Medical Association in 1895, and in 1900 he and his wife Beebe Steven Lynk founded the University of West Tennessee, taking out a loan against their own home to purchase land for the school, which offered programs in medicine, law, dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing until its closure in 1924.

Sources

1. BlackPast.org; Tennessee Encyclopedia