Craig A. Miller MD, and Charlene Drew Jarvis - Genius Unbroken: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Charles R. Drew

Genius Unbroken: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Charles R. Drew by Craig Miller, MD, and Dr. Charlene Drew Jarvis is the first comprehensive biography of the "Father of the Blood Bank" and a champion of civil rights and equal health care. Read on for a Q&A with the author to learn more!

What inspired you to choose Dr. Charles R. Drew as the subject of a biography?

As a physician I was aware of the name of Drew but only vaguely cognizant of his accomplishments. I knew he had accomplished something in the early days of blood banking. One would naturally wonder how he came to do so during the first half of the 20th century as an African American, faced with the obstacles of the era (and beyond). Friends and colleagues in the medical and history communities suggested I consider writing about Drew, and when I realized that no adult biography had been written about him, I became very intrigued. When I reached out to his daughter, we developed an immediate connection and the project was instantly off and running.

During your research, did you come across anything that surprised you/challenged your previously held beliefs about the subject? Did you make any surprising discoveries?

Certainly, I discovered many things about Charles Drew that had either been unreported in the past or were recorded inaccurately. Such errors tend to propagate and become conventional wisdom surprisingly easily. A few will be put to bed by this book. There are also new insights that will surprise some people.

How did you approach the task of making your work accessible to readers who may not hold a scientific background?

I always write keeping in mind the perspective of the scientific layman. Hopefully, if I've done a reasonable job of that then one can appreciate the accomplishments of Drew and other scientists in a qualitative way, even if the details of their achievements are more completely understood by those who actually work in the field. They say only a composer can really appreciate Mozart but his stuff sound pretty good to the rest of us, too!