Friday 27 March 2015

BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " Dr CLARENCE DAVID HINTON " A PROMINENT EAR, NOSE AND THROAT DOCTOR IN WASHINGTON SINCE THE LATE 1948.s : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

          BLACK    SOCIAL     HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Ear, Nose, Throat Doctor Clarence David Hinton, 91

Otolaryngologist Clarence David Hinton played classical music on the violin.
Otolaryngologist Clarence David Hinton played classical music on the violin. (Family Photo)


Clarence David Hinton, 91, a prominent ear, nose and throat doctor in Washington since the late 1940s who had served as otolaryngology department chairman of several hospitals, died Sept. 23 at Holy Cross Hospital. He had a urinary tract infection.
Dr. Hinton trained in otolaryngology in Philadelphia before opening a practice in Washington. His office was based at Washington Hospital Center for many years before he retired in 1990, although he maintained an active role in medicine at Howard University Hospital through 2001.
He was chairman of Howard University Hospital's otolaryngology division from 1963 to 1979 and chaired the Children's National Medical Center's otolaryngology department from 1978 to 1980. While at Children's, he became the first black person to chair the D.C. Medical Society's otolaryngology section.
In 1993, he received the lifetime distinguished service award from the National Medical Association, an organization that represents black doctors.
He held top offices in other professional associations and societies. In the early 1950s, while on the staff at Freedman's Hospital, a predecessor to Howard University Hospital, he became a fellow in the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology.
Dr. Hinton was born in Sharpsburg, Ky., and raised in Peoria, Ill. He was 3 when his mother died, and he was brought up by his father, a chauffeur.
He was a distinguished athlete and student in Peoria and received an academic scholarship to Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill. He was on Northwestern's championship football team before graduating in 1938 and was later elected to the school's football hall of fame.
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He was a 1942 graduate of Howard University's medical school and served in Burma and India as an Army medical officer during World War II. For part of the war, he was assigned to the 335th Station Hospital, an all-black facility near Tagap, Burma.
He owned and operated a private practice in family medicine from 1946 to 1949. A mentor encouraged Dr. Hinton's growing interest in otolaryngology, not a field offering blacks many opportunities for training. He did his residency at Philadelphia General Hospital and later wrote an unpublished history of the profession, "Early African-American Otolaryngologists."
Until his death, he was among the oldest board-certified black otolaryngologists in the United States.
His hobbies included playing classical music on violin and genealogy. He was married for 63 years to ViCurtis Gray Hinton, who had raised millions of dollars for local and national educational, cultural and civic institutions before her death in 2006.
Survivors include three children, V. Audrey Hinton, Diane Perry and Clarence D. Hinton Jr., all of Silver Spring; a sister, Louise Long of Silver Spring; and two grandchildren.

-- Adam Bernstein

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