Dr James McCune Smith

James McCune Smith (1813-1865) was the first African American to gain a degree in medicine.   He was unsuccessful in gaining a place at medical school in New York state, his home state, so his friends and benefactors paid for him to travel to Glasgow, so he gained a degree at the University of Glasgow.  That university is building a new learning hub and naming it after him.

As well as being a physician, he was an abolitionist, working with Frederick Douglass, and made contributions to the fields of physiology and medical statistics.   

The Wikipedia page about him is a good starting point. 

I found two articles about him, in PubMed.   One is cited in the Wikipedia article and the other not.

The older one (1) describes a case report that was read on his behalf to the New York Medical and Surgical Society, and references a paper that he wrote in the New York Medical Journal (2).   

According to the newer one (3) these were the first case report by an African American, and the first paper by an African American physician based in the United States.   

McCune Smith has an entry in CHAAMP, from the University of Virginia.

References

1. Morgan TM. The education and medical practice of Dr. James McCune Smith (1813-1865), first black American to hold a medical degree. J Natl Med Assoc. 2003;95(7):603-14.  Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2594637/ (Accessed: 15th October 2020)

2. Smith JM. On the influence of opium upon the catamenial functions. New York Journal of Medicine. 1844;2:56-8. Available at https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nnc2.ark:/13960/t1gj2984x?urlappend=%3Bseq=72 (Accessed 15th October 2020)

3. Lujan HL, DiCarlo SE. First African-American to hold a medical degree: brief history of James McCune Smith, abolitionist, educator, and physician. Adv Physiol Educ. 2019;43(2):134-9.  Available at: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/advan.00119.2018 (Accessed 15th October 2020)