The retired cardiologist now helps black people build wealth and improve health

Healthcare pioneer and retired cardiologist Dr. Henry W.B. “Hank” Smith III has been known for helping save lives for nearly forty years.

Now Smith is making one other major contribution by helping the black community build wealth and achieve other positive outcomes akin to improved health.

Smith, considered one of the primary black American cardiologists in Greensboro, North Carolina, hung up his stethoscopes last January. He practiced for 39 years before retiring from Cone Health HeartCare. He said BLACK ENTERPRISES that he spends his days encouraging collective donations to financially strengthen the Black Investments in Greensboro (BIG) fund.

MAKING AN IMPACT ON THE BLACK COMMUNITY THROUGH FUNDING

The fund, a Black-led everlasting endowment on the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, was founded by Mae Douglas, Smith and 10 other Black community leaders in 2019. They serve on the steering committee. Today it’s price $1.5 million, and the fund’s mission is to improve education, health and economic conditions in Greensboro and Guilford County, North Carolina.

“Grants fund programs and alliances that advance these goals.”

Demonstrating his support, Smith shared that he and his wife, Cheryl, have contributed roughly $110,000 to the fund and proceed to donate annually. The Smiths live in Greensboro.

The first $50,000 grant was awarded last 12 months because the fund grew to offer short-term capital for Black contractors to buy surety bonds to enable them to bid on work projects. Smith says a second grant — likely in the quantity of $100,000 — will likely be awarded later this 12 months or in early 2025 to support apprenticeship programs for Black and disadvantaged highschool students. Find out more concerning the fund Here.

AIMING TO REMOVE SYSTEMIC BARRIERS AND DIFFERENCES

As the fund grows, additional capital will likely be used to improve the well-being of its recipients. In his opinion, the event of the fund within the case of collective philanthropy depends upon continuous contributions and market recognition. “The grants will be higher-level investments aimed at removing systemic barriers that cause and perpetuate Black socioeconomic disparities.”

But Smith’s desire to offer back didn’t come easy. He developed a love for interventional cardiology after graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1978 and Morehouse College in 1974.

AFTER OVERCOMING OBSTACLES, BECOME THE BEST CARDIOLOGIST

He gravitated towards cardiology attributable to the high incidence of heart problems in America, especially amongst African Americans. Smith says Morehouse repaired his low self-esteem and helped him realize that a profession in medicine was possible.

He recalls that in Statesboro, Georgia, where he grew up, there have been no black doctors and only a number of white doctors visited blacks. He noticed that in spite of everything the white patients were admitted, the black patients needed to enter the office through the back door. “There were no role models. It wasn’t until I entered Morehouse and the support of the HBCU community, faculty and fellow students that I began to consider medicine.”

As a pioneer, Smith was an early advocate of using procedures using balloons and stents to stop a heart attack. He says “balloon angioplasty” was unproven when he became a cardiologist, nevertheless it evolved to turn into the treatment of alternative for heart attacks, and stays so today.

Moreover, Smith related that each one the center attack cases he had within the early years were difficult since the equipment was primitive. However, he says the situation improved significantly within the late Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties. “Improvements proceed to be made, covering most cases.