Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1576

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

.4 linear_foot (1 box)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Jeoffry B. Gordon collection of Medical Committee for Human Rights and Student Health Organization records, circa 1965-1970s, Ms. Coll. 1576, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

circa 1965-1970s (inclusive)

Creator:

Gordon, Jeoffry B., 1942-

Form:

Articles, Clippings (information artifacts), Newsletters, and Publications (documents)

Abstract:

Jeoffry B. Gordon (born 1942) is a retired physician who primarily worked in California. His specialties included family medicine, public health and general preventive medicine, and medical toxicology. This collection documents, to a limited degree, Jeoffry B. Gordon's involvement as a medical activist in the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially in the Student Health Organization (SHO) and the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR). While documentation of Gordon's immediate involvement is limited, the collection provides a glimpse into the world of medical activsm, more broadly, during this time period, through publications, newspaper clippings, journal articles, and newsletters.

Jeoffry B. Gordon (born 1942) is a retired physician who primarily worked in California. His specialties included family medicine, public health and general preventive medicine, and medical toxicology. He also worked on child abuse prevention and policy.

Gordon earned a bachelor's degree in social relations from Harvard University in 1963, his doctor of medicine from Case Western Reserve University in 1967, and a master's of public health from the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in 1970. During and after his education at Tulane, Gordon observed medical care in Louisiana, in particular related to marginalized communities, serving as both a physician and an activist for incarcerated persons and Black patients. He also worked to desegregate the last state-run segregated blood bank.

In 1965, Gordon was a founding member of the Student Health Organization (SHO), "a national coalition of health-science students ... [concerned with] controversial issues of health and society that were absent from the traditional curriculum [of medical schools]," (McGarvey). Topics of concern included "abortion, poverty and slum dwellers, biological and bio-chemical warfare, and discrimination in medicine," as well as health care for marginalized communities, generally. The First Assembly of the Student Health Organizations was held at the University of Chicago in 1965, resulting in projects that provided real life experience with the challenges being explored by the SHO. Over the next three years, two more assemblies were held, each time with a larger attendance and each time resulting in projects. Over the years, "SHO went on to create regional branches," (Columbia University) and appears to have functioned through 1969.

From 1969 to 1970, Gordon served on the National Governing Council of the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR). MCHR was founded in 1964 "as a support group for civil rights workers in Mississippi," (Dittmer) and was made up of nearly one thousand volunteers who registered voters, worked in community centers, and taught in Freedom Schools. Physicians who founded the organization were largely active in left-wing organizations; but there were also private practice physicians, medical educators, and public health workers. After their work during "Freedom Summer" in 1964, "the participating health professionals decided to make the Medical Committee for Human Rights a permanent organization ... [in order to] continue to assist civil rights workers in Mississippi and other southern states, but shifted its focus to deal with health problems facing thousands of poor Blacks who lacked any medical services," (Dittmer). By the 1970s, MCHR in the northern states shifted their focus to different issues including creating free inner-city clinics, increasing Black student enrollment in medical schools, advocating for woman's right to choose, and campaigning for national health insurance. The MCHR was dissolved in 1980.

In July 1970, Gordon began working in San Diego, California, first with the University of California, San Diego, then at the Beach Area Community College, then in a series of state and county public health positions, and then as a physician for communities in San Diego. From 2014 to 2017, he served as a bioethics consultant at the Sharp Metropolitan Medical Campus in San Diego. Throughout his career, he served as an activist for marginalized communities.

Since his retirement, Gordon "cared for unhoused people for four years at a federally qualified health center and managed COVID-19 outbreaks among the unhoused for the Los Angeles Department of Public Health," (Health Affairs). He continues to work at the state and national level to prevent and minimize family violence and to advocate for systematic health approaches to pandemic mitigation.

Works consulted:

Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library, Archives and Special Collections. "50 Years of Earth Day: Student Activism and the Medical New Left,"(https://www.library-archives.cumc.columbia.edu/exhibits/earth-day-50-years/student-activism), accessed 2024 May 22.

Dittmer, John. "The Medical Community for Human Rights," American Medical Journal of Ethics, Vol. 16, No. 9, pages 745-748. 2014 September.

Health Affairs. "Jeoffry B. Gordon," (https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hauthor20230824.466970/full/), accessed 2024 May 22.

McGarvey, Michael R., Fitzhugh Mullan, and Steven S. Sharfstein. "A Study in Medical Action--The Student Health Organizations," New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 79, No. 2, pages 74-80. 1968 July 11.

This collection documents, to a limited degree, Jeoffry B. Gordon's involvement as a medical activist in the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially in the Student Health Organization (SHO) and the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR). While documentation of Gordon's immediate involvement is limited, the collection provides a glimpse into the world of medical activsm, more broadly, during this time period, through publications, newspaper clippings, journal articles, and newsletters.

The bulk of the material is printed and/or published material. Of all components of the collection, the activities of the Student Health Organization (SHO) are most well documented, with minutes, position papers, and project proposals. Overall, the material demonstrates the political and social upheaval of the time, and reflects anti-war, political, racial, and socio-economic issues.