Harvard Afro Requests Black Psychiatrist On Health Services Staff

The Association of African and Afro-American Students has asked the University Health Services to hire a Negro psychiatrist, Jeffrey P. Howard '69 president of Afro, said yesterday.

"A white psychiatrist is no more capable of dealing with the unique problems of black students than are white administrators," Howard said, adding, "there is a general lack of confidence among black students toward the Health Services."

According to Dr. Graham B. Blaine, UHS chief of psychiatry, the 10 full-time and 3 part-time psychiatrists on the UHS staff are all white.

"Because of the all-white staff at the Health Services, a lot of black people refuse to go who otherwise might," Howard said yesterday.

"In my general experience outside Harvard, I have never had a black person ask to be referred to a black psychiatrist," Blaine said. "This separated feeling is something new within the last few years."

But the UHS is well aware of this problem and "has been concerned for years," Dr. Dana L. Farnsworth, director of the UHS, said yesterday. Farnsworth emphasized that "there is no conflict on this matter" between Afro and the UHS.

"I strongly hope that these desires of the Association of African and Afro-American Students can be realized," Farnsworth said. "I am doing all that I can to further them. In fact, I feel quite optimistic about the possibility."

Elvin Montgomery '68, vice-president of Afro, first spoke to Farnsworth last week, "but we have been looking to hire a black psychiatrist for years--not in the emergency sense, but in the long-term sense," Farnsworth said yesterday.

According to Blaine, all those applying for a position on the UHS staff must come before the Appointments Committee, composed of all tenured members of the medical staff. The Committee usually follows the recommendations of the chief of each service.

"We interview everyone who's interested in working here," Blaine said yesterday, "but we don't go out beating the bushes to look for people."

"I think it's most important that we have a good staff, and would consider a black psychiatrist a plus," Blaine added.

"Harvard has been trying to get a Negro psychiatrist," Dean Glimp said. "The real problem is that the number of Negro psychiatrists in the country must be extraordinarily small."

Glimp said that he also has spoken with Montgomery and Howard as early as last spring. "The case Afro makes for having a Negro psychiatrist is a good one," Glimp said, "but it has to be handled in a ticklish way. Some Negroes may react negatively to the idea of having someone just for them."

"In general, good psychiatry is good psychiatry," Farnsworth said, "but in a special situation hard rules may not apply. This may well be one of those times."