In Black America; Dr. Alfred N. Poindexter, Part 2

Now we are going to start putting our hands together. Let the lightakh唺, bloody wave, and the signs that give you light. Let the lightakh唺 and your hand, and just look at the lightak, skilled and Ahhh! In Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. I was one of the original veterinarians and when I first came here, I was the only black

veterinarian. There was the black veterinarian before me who was very outstanding and very well thought of and people still think a lot of him and he's passed on. And I've always tried to pat him after him and live in his footsteps and have the same type of record that he had. But I think everything has worked well for me because I think the majority of my clientele may be the, not the minority, would be the majority. Dr. Alfred N. Poindexter, Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Preview A&M University. Dr. Poindexter is the oldest living African-American practicing veterinary medicine in this country. February is Black History Month, it's a time of year we celebrate the contributions and achievements of African-Americans to this country and the world.

On February 7th, 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson organized the first Black History Week. He was expanded in 1960 to include the whole month of February. African-American efforts to attain equality and freedom in this country have followed two paths, one as stressed integration within mainstream society by a just application of the constitutional guarantees of freedom and equality, i.e. civil rights. The other has emphasized the uniqueness of the Black experience and sought to establish distinctive Black institutions, agencies, businesses, and communities i.e. Black Power. Both civil rights and Black Power go back to the early days of colonial America as seen in many early movements and documents. I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, Dr. Alfred N. Poindexter, Professor of Veterinary Medicine, part 2 in Black America. Since you mentioned administrations, you know I was hired by Mr. Willette Rutherford Banks

and he was a principal, this was in 1945. And so I've been here through every president to purview his head. And so I have been exposed to many administrative styles and I am a very compatible person. On September 27th, 1996, Dr. Poindexter was inducted into the Texas Heritage Hall of Honor. As 1945, he has taught more than 8,000 students during his tenure at Preview A&M University. Dr. Poindexter is a living legend at PV and is considered and recognized by farmers and ranchers within 150 mile radius of Preview as the authority and expert on veterinary medicine. Dr. Poindexter is one of the first two Black members of the Texas Veterinary Medical Association. In recognition of his outstanding achievements in veterinary medicine and for years of teaching

and community service, the Houston Endowment honored him in the spring 1995 by awarding Preview A&M with a $300,000 endowed scholarship in his name. In 1992, the Texas A&M Board of Regents recognized Dr. Poindexter by renaming the veterinary hospital on campus after him. Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, he was graduated from Lincoln High School. During the year of the School of Veterinary Medicine in February 1943, during World War II was able to continue his veterinary medicine studies by serving in the Army's specialized training program. In May 1945, he was awarded his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. On this week's program, we conclude our conversation with Dr. Alfred N. Poindexter. It's different now with the computer, with the machines and things that we used to do by hand. We do with machines and the technology like you have MRIs and different tests, you know,

it's far superior. But it's nice that you had that basic knowledge to start off with so that you can't handle the new technology, but yeah, it's completely different. What keeps Dr. Poindexter at a level of enthusiasm to teach today as you were teaching 50 years ago? Well, I think I am as enthusiastic. I have a deep appreciation for learning and to help students to learn and to progress. And I just, I enjoy teaching, I enjoy practicing, I enjoy animals. And so for that reason, I guess this keeps me going because I've been doing this for 52

years. And I talked to a gentleman a little while ago and he said that he worked at a place for 19 years and he was just tired and he said he wanted, he just quit. But I know there's a lot of people too also that lose enthusiasm after they get home and start doing nothing, then they want to go back to work. But I've never lost my enthusiasm. And I enjoy what I'm doing today as much as I did when I started. And I guess if I didn't, I would stop. You mention your wife has always stuck by you through your career and why you're in veterinary college. You and her making an adjustment, also bringing up a family down here in Preview, Texas, which is roughly 50 miles from Houston. But basically you're out in the middle of farm country, rural America.

Well my wife has been my wind under my sails. We've been married 55 years and she's been very enthusiastic. She has been disappointed a lot of times because I'm sure that she wants to do things and go places that it's not easy for me to go or not easy for me to do because of other commitments like teaching or practicing. But she has been very understanding and I love her very much. And we've raised our children, we have five children and you mentioned that we do live outside and all of my children live in the Houston area but not out here. But we are very comfortable out here. We have all of the luxuries and the necessities that one would have in the city. And so we enjoy it, we enjoy it very much.

Do you find the problems or the stigma of racism somewhat diminished if you're the only veterinarian within the two or 300 mile area and if someone's animal is sick, you being a black veterinarian has little or nothing to do with the decision and them calling you? I think I'm sure that we have some problems with that but I think if you're well prepared and can do the job, I think people will use you or consult with you regardless of your color. They are your background, they call you for what you can do and what you can do for them. So I've had some problems and I'm sure everyone will have problems like that with racism. But very little, very little through the years and I have been the only veterinarian in

this particular area for a long time, not now, but used to be. And I was one of the original veterinarians and when I first came here, I was the only black veterinarian. There was the black veterinarian before me who was very outstanding and very well thought of and people still think a lot of him and he's passed on. And I've always tried to pat him after him and live in his footsteps and have the same type of record that he had. But I think everything has worked well for me because I think the majority of my clientele may be the, not the minority, it would be the majority. Since you mentioned administrations, you know I was hired by Mr. Willette Rutherford Banks

and he was a principal, this was in 1945. And so I've been here through every president that per view has had. And so I have been exposed to many administrative styles and I am a very compatible person and I think I can make the adjustments with everyone. But I've never had any problems and then veterinary medicine at Peruvian University is a science of discourse where they don't more or less let you do what you want to do. But if you're doing the right thing, I haven't been bothered. And so I think everything has worked very well for me through the years and the veterinary

hospital, the clientele and the service and the service that we rented to the students and to the university and to the university, a livestock and to the community. I think it's been very good so we've had no problems whatsoever. You mentioned earlier some lack of exposure to veterinary medicine but if young people understood that one is a rewarding occupation, one can make a decent and livable wage in this particular practice and last but not least, if individuals were exposed or had opportunity, city individuals, had an opportunity to see what veterinary medicine has to offer, do you find more young people not particularly African Americans or other minorities going

into the field? Well, speaking of Afro-Americans, if I would sit down with 50 people and we'd say 25 would be Afro-American and 25 would be Caucasians or other races, I think maybe just a select few of Afro-Americans would want to become veterinarians and a substantial amount of the majority of Caucasians would want to be veterinarians. And I think a lot of this would possibly be due to role models and there are only just a very few veterinarians. Texas has 3,800 or 4,000 veterinarians practicing in the state. And I think I'm not sure on these figures but I don't think they're more than 10 to 15 practicing in the state or in the state working.

And so if kids don't see role models and they see someone else doing it, they might, they would want to do it. I know I had role models and I'm sure you had role models. But I think role models is one thing that would be very important but Afro-American kids and not only that all kids can make a good living to be able to purchase their homes, educate their children and do all the things they want to do in life. Here is a new study out, I think by gentleman at Vanderbilt and is saying that the feel of veterinary medicine has become saturated and he has figures to substantiate that. And he recommends that maybe vet schools might need to raise their tuition or reduce the numbers that they are admitting because maybe in the year 2000 there will be more veterinarians

and they will be positions. But we haven't got to that point yet and some people don't want to accept that. But there are a lot of veterinarians. You see when I went to vet school there were 10 veterinary colleges in the nation and of the 10 I think there were about some of them, most of them were graduating about 60 per year so that made about 600 veterinarians coming out in 1945. And now there are about 27 or 28 veterinarians, schools in the continental United States and all of them are producing at least 100. Some of them may be 128 so you see how many veterinarians there are out there. Over the years you received numerous awards and citations. Well I think this last award that I received about two weeks ago to be placed into Texas

Heritage Hall of Honor. I think this was a real, real fine award that makes me feel very proud because I have been placed in the select company of a lot of the most important people in Texas and they're not a lot of them and these people have been outstanding in ranching and farming and agriculture and putting Texas on the United States map in these particular areas. So that was one. Another one was that the University placed a $300,000 scholarship in the A&P to help young people become veterinarians.

The first award would be in 1997 and then I have received the Silver Beaver Award in Scouting which I've been very proud of and then the people in Houston with the Houston livestock show which is one of the biggest show is the biggest show in the country selected me as being one of the five outstanding living legends along with Earl Campbell for the football player. You know him at Austin rather and Mr. OC Jackson and Mr. Dick Graves and one or two others. Anyway this was a real fine honor I thought and one more was, oh shut up again, oh yeah the Commissioner of Agriculture, Rick Perry, Commissioner Perry selected me as being one of the four outstanding black agriculturalists in the state in 1993 or 94 and had a ceremony

I thought that was real nice and these things make me feel very good and also have a building named after me, the name of the veterinarian built in here at Prairie View after me. Do you have students or interns assisting you in your practice of veterinary medicine? Yes we have a young lady who's been with me and very efficient and then we have a lot of students that they intern, hang around and they learn their procedures and we only accept those people that we feel are really interested and honest, we have a young lady now practicing in Houston area who work with me for about four or five years and receive their training we have another young lady in him state that started with me as a high school student

and completed her training as a veterinarian in him state. We have a young man from Jamaica who work for me and is in Houston area so we have a lot of young people that have become veterinarians in fact no matter I believe that through the years that I have been here that there are about 23 or 25 young men and women that have become veterinarians and most of them have worked for me and assisted me at one time on the present day I'm on the water county industrial development board and so I work along with that and I've been on the county extension as a vice president and I work with that and so then you and then for each they've asked me to talk or the Texas agriculture extension they they call on me and so I stay busy are there any specialty within veterinary medicine

or veterinarian is a veterinarian or any specialties yes you know when I was trained and I think students still are trained they're trained just trained to be veterinarians just like doctors are trained to be doctors I mean physicians and incidentally I have two of my children are physicians and but after you're trained many times you want to possibly go into specialties and someone to work especially with horses some with cattle some with swans some want to do research some want to be orthopedic surgeons or someone to be dentists like small animal dentists some want to be dermatologist some want to be cancer specialists soft tissue specialists neurosurgeons so you have these specialties and more and more

and I believe it's time continues and the way expenses are that people will most likely have to get have some type of insurance to pay for their services because people are sending people to special especially usually charge a little more than regular practitioners so yeah there are many specialties in veterinary medicine many that I have not named but I think when I was coming up we were specializing but not as much as they are now because I know many procedures now that I used to do and the cost of doing it the equipment necessary that you can't have all that equipment so you just send them to a specialist and I think to do the same thing in the human medicine in human medicine they you'll go to a doctor in the

big medical complex and he'll say go downstairs take these x-rays I'll go over here and get this MRI you see so this is the direction that veterinary medicine is going to factor matter one of my classmates was a dean of veterinary medicine at Davis in the University of California he passed a book on the me called the futures of veterinary medicine so it's going to be a little different you mentioned insurance do people ensure they animals well people ensure their animals yes and but most of the insurance is possibly due for morbidity okay on mortality I'm sorry for mortality but I'm talking about procedures now are getting so expensive that people I think are going to need insurance to pay for the medical bills okay because many people call me and they say well can you do this

for this because you know I can't afford this over here and so I think that's what they're going to need have you run across any troubles in problems that you had a difficult time and and finding solution to the cause yeah I guess you run in those all the time but like anything else you just have to be patient and hoping that the clients will be patient okay be patient and try to find solutions you know you have all types of tests you have consultations and you read and then I don't I've been blessed I can call back on my 52 years of experience in 52 years you see a heck of a lot of things and so many times for example just the other day a lady brought a little puppy in a little shawawa cute little

puppy and then you have hardly any hair on it and so she said what do you think about this puppy doesn't have any hair on it I said let me do a skin scrape and she said what I said I said let's do a skin scrape so we did a screen scraping on him and we isolated a demodectic main which is a little mic demodectic follicularum and she said oh my goodness she said you know I took this dog the two or three vest they said he just had a little allergy and just put a little powder on him and so on and gone and so she said I hope you don't retire you know but the point is I think if you have dedication and you go and and you have patients you find the answers not all the time but most times you know and then a lot of time you find the answers you can't do anything about it either in preparing

for this interview and speaking to one of your daughters Paula she informed me that everyone calls you docking of course she calls you daddy when did they began calling you dockhead preview well I guess I guess I don't really know no I guess it was as I've been I guess I never thought about it that way but I guess two people called me dock and I guess everything I've been here then my name is rather long and rather complicated porn dexter a lot of people call will call me pond dexter a lot of people call me doctor p and I have a family I saw the little lady not too long ago and she's about oh I get she's in her four days now and she said oh hi there Dr. Pots and I knew then that she had to be a Phillips okay because all of her family all those kids they could say porn dexter so they always

called me Dr. Pots and still do so I have many handles and respond to all of them favorably how many more years you anticipate on teaching I plan to retire this year I don't plan to retire this summer and I have I don't have any health problems with my legs bothering me a lot my knees bothering me a lot and so I'm going to spend that time with with Mrs. Pond dexter and try to go some of the places that she's been wanting to go for the last 55 years and do some of the things that she wants to do and just take it easy but I wanted to be sure that I got out all of my practicing all of my teaching before I stopped because I didn't when I stopped I don't plan to go back.

So you have an opportunity to assist in finding your successor? Fundamentally there's a search and if I'm asked I do have some ideas but and I'm sure I will be asked and there will be some names submitted and I'm sure that whether they will get it or not I don't know but at least it's customary to have a search and for qualified people to feel the position. Dr. Alfred N. Pond dexter, Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Preview A&M University if you have a question or comment or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, write us. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessary those of this station

or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for IBA technical producer Cliff Hargrove, I'm John El Hansen, Jr. Thank you for joining us today and please join us again next week. The set copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. In the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John El Hansen, Jr. join me this week on in Black America. The first thing was that my parents didn't have a lot of money and they had a lot of love

for me. They did all that they could and I worked hard and made me the sacrifices. Dr. Alfred N. Poindexan, Professor of Veterinary Medicine, this week on in Black America.