Gratitude
Posted: May 21, 2010
Living a dream
One osteopathic physician made a big difference in Dr. Betty Jo White’s life, so in her retirement, she’s paying it forward by investing in the preservation of osteopathic medicine’s legacy for the benefit of others with the dream of becoming a physician.
Born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks, Dr. White knew at age 14 she wanted to pursue a career in medicine. What she didn’t fully appreciate at the time were the challenges she would face in order to achieve that dream as a woman.
“I would never have called it ‘Women’s Liberation,’” she says of that time. “After all, at the age of 14 in the summer of 1951, whoever heard of ‘Women’s Lib?’ I called it something I wanted to do — studying to become a doctor.”
Fate, Dr. White believes, intervened when she met the man who would steer her toward attending college in Kirksville, Mo., where, back in 1892, A. T. Still had opened the first school of osteopathic medicine and in doing so provided new opportunities for women.
In 1956 while a senior in high school, Betty traveled some 30 miles to see a family doctor for a routine visit only to discover that her family physician was on vacation. She instead was seen by the new physician in town, Harvey Nickels Jr., D.O., ’54, who would set the course for her career.
“This man,” Dr. White remembers, “took time out of his busy schedule to ask me what I was going to do when I graduated from high school.” Upon learning she wanted to be a doctor, Dr. Nickels immediately picked up the phone and called pre-osteopathic professor Dr. John D. Black at Northeast Missouri State Teachers College (Truman State University). He announced that White was coming to school and instructed him to send an admission application and to look out for her at the university.
Within three weeks, she was enrolled in summer school, on her way to becoming a physician. “I was a complete stranger to this man,” Dr. White says, “who not only helped to enroll me into the college, but also guaranteed to back my tuition and to sponsor me into the osteopathic school if I needed it. Fate had stepped into my life.”
On the recommendation of her pre-osteopathic college advisor, she entered the Kansas City College of Osteopathy and Surgery (now Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences—College of Osteopathic Medicine) and obtained her D.O. degree in 1963.
“On my first day in the anatomy lab, I decided that I wanted to become a surgeon.” But surgical residencies were hard to come by at that time, particularly for women. “During the last six months of my internship, I applied for residencies in neurosurgery at various hospitals in the U.S. and Europe, but there were simply none available at the time.”
Although she eventually gave up her dream of becoming a neurosurgeon, Dr. White continued to apply for general surgical residencies, and in 1964 learned of an opportunity at Bashline Hospital in Grove City, Penn.
Even though she had never heard of Dr. O. O. Bashline, for whom the hospital is named, one of his sons, who was at that time a practicing surgeon on the hospital’s staff, would “change my life and help me to do what I wanted, which was to become a surgeon.”
Following her residency, Dr. White practiced general surgery at Bashline Hospital, and for many years was active in the hospital’s leadership, including service as chief of staff and chairman of the Department of Surgery for three years.
Her association with Kirksville and the Still National Osteopathic Museum is strong. A longtime supporter of the museum, in 1994 Dr. White was appointed to the Still National Osteopathic Museum’s National Advisory Board. She generously continues her support today through the recent creation of a $10,000 Museum Special Collections Endowment Fund. Income generated from this fund will be used to purchase collection care supplies, enhance exhibit development, and assist with acquisition expenses. The endowment will be supplemented in the future from the eventual distribution of a $70,000 Charitable Gift Annuity that Dr. White has arranged with ATSU.
In addition, Dr. White supports pre-osteopathic students interested in the Still National Osteopathic Museum with a scholarship at Truman State University. It is her intent to inspire students, particularly women, to become osteopathic physicians with a lifelong interest in the history of osteopathic medicine.