Maurice Thompson hails from Cleveland, Ohio and attended John Hay Cleveland School of Science and Medicine High School. He attended Cleveland State for undergraduate school and graduated in 2022. Maurice developed an interest in dentistry while shadowing his Cleveland Orthodontist during his high school career exploration project.  Maurice was impressed to observe an African American man in a leadership role and was engaged by the planning and precision of dentistry.

Maurice stated that his own attention to detail was a talent that contributed to his interest in dentistry. He listed the summer spent on campus at Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry and over 100 hours of dental shadowing as experiences that reinforced his desire to pursue a career in dentistry.

Shadowing also prepared his career path, giving him an understanding of dental procedures and patient care. He also referred again to the Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry experiences. In this internship he worked with dental students and professionals and found the mentoring valuable.

In the future, he wants to give back to the community by focusing on the underrepresented and hopes to inspire children. Maurice also has a desire to provide care at community health events and free clinics.

He further shared that the pandemic solidified his decision to pursue dentistry, because of the significant role oral health plays in overall health.  He stated that the pandemic has shown that it is important for more healthcare professionals to protect public health.

Maurice expressed a sincere appreciation for the scholarship funds and support from our Health Legacy Board.   He explained how every penny helps with the significant debt associated with the pursuit of becoming a dentist.

Maurice now has a grade point average of 3.4 which he was very proud to achieve during the 2024-2025 academic year.  In terms of future aspirations, Maurice Thompson is still committed to returning to Cleveland and practicing as a dentist in an urban city that has a severe shortage of minority doctors and a need to bridge the health disparity gap.

Health Legacy of Cleveland Champions 2025-2026

ANNUALLY BOARD MEMBERS RAISE AND GIVE FUNDS TO HEALTH LEGACY

PRESIDENT/CHAIRPERSON:  DR. BESSIE HOUSE SOREMEKUN (3^rd from the left in picture)

Please remember the important pivotal role Health Legacy of Cleveland, Inc. has played in highlighting health care disparities between the African American community and other communities in the United States and has also provided ongoing scholarship support to ensure that more minorities attend medical and dental schools so that the pipeline of minority physicians and dentists is secure.

This effort will be accomplished by connecting the medical expertise of our Board Members to the ongoing health care challenges that are being experienced by the Black community during this post pandemic area and beyond. Additionally, over the past 2 years we are welcoming nine (9) new Board of Members to carry the mission and traditions of Health Legacy into the future.

At this juncture, we are no longer just focusing on future physicians and dentists. We are now looking at nurses, midwives, and other health career professionals.

Health Legacy of Cleveland, Inc. is honored by your past generosity and appreciates your ongoing support of our fundraising efforts to close the health disparity gap for minorities in Cleveland.

BLACK HISTORY AS IT RELATES TO MEDICINE

BLACKS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO JOIN THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION UNTIL RECENTLY.  BLACKS HAD TO FORM THEIR OWN SOCIETY…WHICH WAS CALLED THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.  In 2008, the American Medical Association concluded a three-year study on the racial divide in organized medicine and publicly apologized for their organization’s past discrimination practices.

Source-“Reckoning with medicine’s history of racism” Feb. 17, 2021-James L. Madara, MD, CEO and Executive Vice-President -AMA

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

APOLOGY SHINES LIGHT ON RACIAL SCHISIM IN MEDICINE

Organized medicine has long reflected that most American of obsessions: race. For well over a century, the American Medical Association has been the nation’s largest and most powerful physicians’ group — and an overwhelmingly white one. Black physicians have their own, lesser-known group, the National Medical Association.

In 2008, The A.M.A. made a rare public address to the N.M.A. to deliver an even rarer message: an apology to the nation’s black physicians, citing a century of “past wrongs.”What wrongs, exactly? Dr. W. Montague Cobb could have answered that question at length. Dr. Cobb (pictured below) — physician, physical anthropologist, civil rights activist, president of the National Medical Association in the 1960s — knew that the organization owed its very formation to racial barriers. It was founded in 1895 after the A.M.A. refused to seat three African-American delegates at its annual meetings in 1870 and 1872. He also knew that black patients and doctors were often relegated to subterranean “colored” or charity wards or banned from hospitals altogether; they had responded with their own hospitals and medical schools, at least seven of which existed in 1909.

Dr. W. Montague Cabb (Photo Courtesy of Howard University)

That year, the A.M.A. commissioned a well-known educator, Abraham Flexner, to visit and evaluate each North American medical school. His 1910 report, “Medical Education in the United States and Canada,” raised a further hurdle for black doctors: it recommended that all but two black medical schools — Howard and Meharry — be closed. Unable to attract financing, the others did close, and the number of black physicians predictably fell.

By 1938, the situation had grown so dire that Dr. Louis T. Wright of Harlem Hospital declared, “The A.M.A. has demonstrated as much interest in the health of the Negro as Hitler has in the health of the Jew.”

In 1963, when Dr. Cobb became president of the N.M.A., the United States had 5,000 black doctors out of 227,027 total. Although A.M.A. membership was often important to hospital practice, specialty training and professional achievement, many chapters and “constituent societies” — medical groups that were the gatekeepers to the larger organization — were closed to blacks.

And the A.M.A. repeatedly refused to force its constituent societies to admit blacks. In 1952, Dr. Martha Mendell, a white member of the Physicians Forum, a multiracial doctors group in New York, argued: “The claim of the A.M.A. that it is powerless to correct this practice because of the ‘autonomy’ of its component societies is an evasion of its responsibility. Surely, if the Southern medical societies decided to admit chiropractors to membership, the A.M.A. would quickly find the means of redefining this autonomy.”

AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY IN MEDICINE

Prior to the Civil War medical education was not open to people of color in the United States, due to enslavement. The Post Civil War era provided scarce opportunities for education and treatment for African-Americans. Separate institutions were built since integration was not an option, including the founding of the NMA (National Medical Association) in 1895, since Black doctors were not recognized in the AMA (American Medical Association).

This and other Black organizations helped immensely, but segregation continued into the 20th century. Although some black students were admitted into white medical schools and hospitals, they faced blatant racism, ostracism, and prejudice. Even now in the 21st century, there is still an alarming lack of diversity in the education system and health care as illustrated in Dr. Tweedy’s recent article in the NYT.

Health Legacy of Cleveland, Inc. is a part of the positive groups founded to eradicate that lacking. We assist minority medical & dental students in succeeding and achieving their goals. We offer formidable scholarships and provide reputable student programs for them, throughout their education and career. That mentoring ultimately helps to bridge the gap in health care disparities in Ohio, and across our nation.