From segregation to inspiration, James Griffin, M.D., is making history at Parkland and UT Southwestern

Newswise — To call the connection James D. Griffin, M.D., has with UT Southwestern and Parkland Memorial Hospital lifelong is no exaggeration. Dr. Griffin was born at Parkland in 1958, when the labor and delivery ward was still segregated. More than six decades later, his colleagues at that hospital elected him President of the medical staff – the first Black physician to earn the honor.

In between those milestones, Dr. Griffin has carved out a remarkable career in medicine and mentorship, breaking barriers along the way.

He received his medical degree from UT Southwestern, where he also completed his resident training in anesthesiology and became the medical school’s first Black graduate to join the UTSW faculty. He is a Distinguished Teaching Professor, Vice Chair of Anesthesiology and Pain Management at UT Southwestern, and a fellow/member of the Southwestern Academy of Teachers. He also was the 2021 recipient of UTSW’s Leaders in Clinical Excellence Institutional Service Award.

In words and actions, Dr. Griffin embodies the mission of academic medicine.

“To educate, discover, and heal is a very powerful goal and dimension of UT Southwestern,” Dr. Griffin said. “I feel it today as well I did in August 1982, when I stepped through these doors as a medical student.”

Growing up in the shadows of UT Southwestern in Oak Cliff, he had long wanted to be a physician – a dream he later learned that he shared with his father, who would end up inspiring others as an educator, coach, principal, and pastor. Dr. Griffin’s mother attended graduate school with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and became a librarian in the Dallas Independent School District.

“Service is in my genes,” Dr. Griffin said. “Teaching is in our blood, which is probably one reason I stayed on the faculty at UT Southwestern. Teaching in medicine is a never-ending quest to construct bridges over chasms of the unknown or misunderstood.”

Charles Whitten, M.D., Chair of Anesthesiology and Pain Management, has known Dr. Griffin since 1985 and appointed him Vice Chair in 2018. He praises his colleague’s gift for connecting with students.

“He goes out of his way to make sure they leave every interaction with him with a pearl of wisdom or nugget of knowledge or a clinical interaction,” Dr. Whitten said.

“That’s a sign of a great clinical teacher.”

As a mentor and a role model, Dr. Griffin shares with his students the exhilaration and pure joy he felt during his formative years in medical school at UTSW.

“We were allowed to spend time in the emergency room, where we saw all the activity, from heart attacks to car wrecks to shootings to assaults, and were immersed into real clinical emergency medicine,” he said. “Sometimes those patients were taken to the OR, and I’d follow them. The intensity, dedication, and focus it takes to be a surgeon, and everyone else that is involved, was really exciting to me.”

Dr. Griffin was accepted into the highly competitive UTSW residency program for anesthesiology. After completing it, he assumed he’d go into private practice. But pride and a desire to pay it forward kept him at UTSW and Parkland.

“There are great people, great educators, and great doctors here,” Dr. Griffin said. “I felt if I could pass along a little bit of what I had received to the next generation of physicians, why not stick around?”

Luis Llamas, M.D., is one of many who are glad he did.

“When I was a senior medical student at UT Southwestern, Dr. Griffin taught me proper anesthetic technique,” said Dr. Llamas, now an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Management at UTSW. “He was then and continues to represent the gold standard of professionalism in concert with positivity when interacting with colleagues, students, and especially our patients and their loved ones. I make best efforts to comport myself like him on a daily basis.”

Above all, Dr. Griffin believes that being an effective and compassionate clinician boils down to listening to the story of each patient and trying to show them kindness and understanding – regardless of where they’re from, what they look like, or the size of their bank account.

“It’s about remembering you’re not treating just a disease,” he said. “You’re treating a person who has a disease.

“We have a big gap in treatment outcomes of patients who come from under-resourced communities, because of limited access to health care,” said Dr. Griffin, who has spent decades treating patients at UT Southwestern and Parkland Health, Dallas County’s public hospital system. “I believe that when we provide adequate resources, good nutrition, adequate housing, and education, the community thrives, so we have an obligation to make sure we foster a balanced society for all.”

In his new role as President and chief administrative officer of the medical staff at Parkland, Dr. Griffin will continue to try to balance the scales and broaden access to high-quality health care.

“We can change this little part of our earth, like Archimedes, who said, ‘Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world,’” Dr. Griffin said. “I’m standing on a different side of the street, but can I make a difference? Am I leveraging my knowledge? Am I leveraging my humanity? Am I leveraging my gifts to help someone else?”

In a word: absolutely.

THE WISDOM OF DR. GRIFFIN:

On the adrenaline rush of anesthesiology: “It’s a specialty that causes my heart to pump with passion. During each surgery or procedure today, we make hundreds or thousands of adjustments to get the high-quality outcomes we expect. Wild West physicians maybe only had a stethoscope and could maybe only diagnose a cold. We’re living in the Golden Age, as they thought they were. We’re carrying the baton for our leg of the race.”

On the doctor-patient dynamic: “The practice of medicine is about two individuals trying to come together. One has a little special expertise, trying to get the other to a better physical condition. Medical education is medical science, but part of it is practicing on the hip of a seasoned faculty member. I make sure I educate the resident or medical student on my hip; that I share hardcore science but also share how we approach and treat another human being, which is integral to the practice of medicine.”

On his unwavering optimism: “There are days that are humbling, but I choose to label each day as good. Outlook determines outcome. … I know I am empowered to do good. I just feel I’m part of God’s hands. I say that with all humility, understanding my minuscule part of his plan doesn’t even register as one grain of sand. But I try.”

On racial barriers, then and now: “Dallas County in the 1950s was certainly a different experience than today. My parents were educators, and we had adequate housing and nutrition. But even in 1958, my mom was not allowed to be a patient in the major hospitals in Dallas except Parkland. It is important to remember that even though we’ve made many advances … there are many barriers that still exist.”

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