Interview, June 13, 2022

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Materials are available at the Duke University Medical Center Archives Reading Room.

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Creator:
Smith, Jessie Parker
Scope and content:

This oral history interview was conducted with Jessie Parker Smith on June 13, 2022 by Patara Williams and transcribed by Josephine McRobbie. Smith's daughter, LaHoma Romocki, was also part of the conversation, and the interview was attended by Heather Lowe (Duke University) and Josephine McRobbie (audio engineer contractor).

Duration: 02:13:12

During the interview, Smith discusses the Durham School of Practical Nursing; African American nurses at Lincoln and Duke Hospitals; experiences interacting with white and Black colleagues; segregation of Duke Hospital facilities and the treatment of white patients; integration of Duke Hospital; care of Black patients with specialty care concerns at Duke Hospital; Smith's work in surgical, thoracic, cardiac, and other units; changes to services at hospitals over time; social activities organized by nurses like bowling, baseball, fashion shows, and racquetball; professional development activities and association; changes in nursing dress codes related to race; meeting her husband, Rev. Dr. Adolphus Smith in Duke Hospital; integration of UNC Hospitals; relationships with physicians and other colleagues, as well as Smith's friendship with LPN Louise Prince; Smith's experiences and perspectives of working as a nurse in regards to patient care; Smith's work with the North Carolina Licensed Practical Nurses Association; caring for her husband during illness; the work and culture of Licensed Practical Nursing throughout Smith's career; and administrative aspects of working for Duke such as the performance evaluation system. The themes of this interview include nursing, racial integration in healthcare, and professional development. Digital files include interview metadata and transcript (PDF), interview with stereo (WAV), interview with mono (MP3), consent form (PDF), consent form addendum (MSG), and TXT files.

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Material in this series was processed using AXAEM's Electronic Records Processing module, which incorporates Bagger as a way to package electronic files with technical metadata. Captured digital content was ingested into AXAEM, where ClamAV Anti-Virus software detected and cleaned any computer viruses. The cleaned files were saved on the Duke University Medical Center Archives' secure server with a regular backup schedule. Includes 9 files totaling 1.49 GB that are available for research: Accession A2023.046 (9 files totaling 1.49 GB).

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Copyright for Official University records is held by Duke University; all other copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.