Matthew Walker Sr.

Matthew Walker Sr. (December 7, 1906 – July 15, 1978) was an American physician and surgeon. He was one of the first African Americans to become a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He was one of the most prominent Black doctors in the 20th century in the United States.

Education and family life The Walker family moved to New Orleans when Matthew was still young so that he could get a good education. When he became grown and married, Matthew left for his own children a recorded tape wherein he recalled memories of his father, Phillip Walker, who served as a Pullman porter during the older gentleman's rather short lifetime.

Fishing and hunting became Walker's greatest means of relaxation throughout his lifetime. The two soon moved to Nashville where they resided in the countryside with a farming family named Beale, until they were able to buy a suitable home in Nashville proper. Four children were eventually born to them: Charlotte Rose (who became a general surgeon specializing in oncology and a professor of surgery as did her father), Maxine June (who later married Brandford Giddings Sr., PhD (chemistry)), who became a computer technologist, Matthew Jr., who became a successful and ardent community activist, and Daniel Phillip, who became a microbiologist.

Having obtained an A.B. from New Orleans University in 1929, Walker decided he wanted a medical career. He applied and was accepted at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, and received an M.D. degree in 1934, with honors. He was elected to the Kappa Pi Honorary Society at Meharry.

Medical career After internship at Hubbard Hospital in Nashville, Dr. Matthew Walker Sr. served as a resident in surgery and gynecology at the George W. Hubbard Hospital of Meharry Medical College and was an instructor in surgery, gynecology, orthopedics, anesthesia, and areas of eye, ear, nose and throat. Walker held these positions from 1936 until 1938. Studying under Dr. Edward L. Howes at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Dr. Walker spent 1938-1939 as a General Education and Board Fellow in surgery. As such, Matthew Walker served as chairman of Meharry's medical school curriculum committee. During this period, with the Dean of the medical school, Dr. Daniel Thomas Rolfe, Dr. Walker revitalized the entire medical school curriculum. Walker served in this position of chair of the medical school curriculum in the 1950s and beyond. He was made a Fellow of the International College of Surgeons in 1947.

Matthew Walker M.D. was the author of many publications regarding surgery and research in medical journals. Principally, his research dealt with wound healing, peritonitis, and penicillin, nutritional and survival experiments following massive reactions of the intestines, vascular surgery, eosinophil counts and adrenocortical response and plasma expanders. was set up with an arrangement for its patients to be provided with health care services. These services were covered under the Taborian insurance premiums; and, were prepaid. Dr. M. Walker built a training program that would involve a rotation from Meharry to Mound Bayou, a small Delta town. Dr. Asa G. Yancey writes of Dr. M. Walker (on learning of the loss of the services of the surgeon-in-charge at Taborian) having sent him, Yancey, as a team member to Mississippi to help provide medical services to these mostly very poor, Black, Delta people. Dr. Walker's own daughter, the late Charlotte Rose Walker, M.D., also trained at Taborian among other places such as the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases in New York which partnership (between Meharry and Memorial) Dr. Walker also established. and the MWCHC Murfreesboro Clinic. There is another one at Fisk University in Nashville. In total, there are seven other Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Centers throughout Middle Tennessee, using the same philosophy and serving over 28,000 patients. He was also pictured on the cover of the Journal of the National Medical Association in May 1979 in a special issue dedicated to himself. Walker had been unanimously elected President of the National Medical Association in 1953, and served from August 1954 to August 1955. Walker was a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Meharry Alumni Association.

Walker was generous to a fault. Later in life, those who knew him most intimately were told that when he would go Thanksgiving shopping, he would fill a basket for his family, and then, have a resident, who would accompany Walker, fill a basket for his own family. Additionally, though Walker never grew really rich on salary from Meharry-Hubbard, he saw to it that many of his poorer relatives whom he had left in Waterproof and nearby towns were often given money or clothing items to help them along their way. Furthermore, Matthew Walker Sr. paid college tuition for several University students (in addition to his own four children). These things he never bragged about. He simply wanted his fellow Blacks to have a chance at the good life as he did.

Dr. Matthew Walker Sr. died on July 15, 1978, in Nashville, Tennessee. At the time of his death, he had provided the surgical education to about half of the Black physicians in the United States. The American Journal of Surgery cited him in 1998 as one of seven exemplary Black surgeons. Dr. Charles Johnson, a Meharrian, wrote the following: "Matthew Walker was well-known and highly regarded as a teacher and surgeon. He was one of the most visible and widely respected of all Meharry's alumni." Then, Dr. W. Montague Cobb, as editor emeritus of the Journal of the National Medical Association, wrote: "During the 28 years this writer edited the Journal... it was possible to pay tribute to many outstanding figures...at Meharry. Yet, none stands taller than Matthew Walker. His stature will grow in the lengthening corridors of time – we shall not see his like again.".