This Women’s History Month we are featuring current and former DHEC employees who have made an impact in our state.
Today we feature, Shirley James, South Carolina’s first Nurse Practitioner.
Shirley James became DHEC and South Carolina’s first Nurse Practitioner in 1974.
Originally from Rembert, S.C., James received her nursing license from the state of New York, working for Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital, the New York State Health Department and Kingsbridge Hospital in Virginia. She later earned a master’s degree in Clinical Nursing from the University of South Carolina.
After moving back to South Carolina, she worked with DHEC on a family planning needs assessment in Orangeburg and Calhoun counties and helped establish DHEC’s Family Planning programs.
In 1973, while working for DHEC, she became the state’s first Nurse Practitioner, after becoming certified during a 12-week course at New Jersey College of Medicine. She was a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner from 1973-1980, serving Orangeburg, Bamberg, Calhoun, Allendale, Aiken and Barnwell counties. She also worked extensively with clinical pregnancy and public health services throughout the state.
From 1980-1984, James worked in DHEC’s Maternal and Child Health as a clinician/administrator in the former Edisto Health District. In this role, she transitioned her focus to health disparities and illnesses that typically affect the Black community, including adult and pediatric sickle cell clinics and DHEC’s pilot project for newborn sickle cell testing. She helped found the Orangeburg Area Sickle Cell Anemia foundation, which still exists today.
In 1988, she was appointed the first president and director of the Minority AIDS Council of Orangeburg, Bamberg and Calhoun counties, and was instrumental in providing HIV/AIDS educational programs at colleges and universities, community organizations and other state agencies. She helped DHEC, the CDC and USC conduct the state’s first HIV/AIDS Risk Behavior study.
Other contributions include serving as a consultant in the original Health Improvement Diabetes Project for Orangeburg and Calhoun counties (in partnership with Clemson University, SC State University and Orangeburg Regional Medical Center); lead clinician and health expert for the SC State University “Horizon Flu Project” (a project focused on increasing flu vaccine rates in the Medicare population); working with the USC-Claflin Center of Excellence for HIV/AIDS and Cancer Research (focused on eliminating health disparities in the Orangeburg area); the National SISTER project for breast cancer research; and The Free Clinic of Orangeburg and Calhoun counties.
Even after her retirement, James continued to advocate for the health of her community, volunteering for local HIV/AIDS and public health groups, as well as local faith-based organizations.
Shirley James died April 24, 2023, in Columbia.
DHEC — and the future South Carolina Department of Public Health — is proud to honor James’s legacy and continue the work that she began more than 50 years ago.
Sources
Times and Democrat:
DHEC News Release: Jan. 17, 1974
Leevy Funeral Home:
Winthrop University Library: https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/oralhistoryprogram/475/
Live Healthy S.C. 
Nice post