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WILLIAM E. DICKEN, M.D.
Vol. 3, p. 1081-1082
Book has photo

The State of Oklahoma has been signally favored in having drawn
within her borders an admirable coterie of physicians and surgeons
who have thoroughly equipped themselves for their responsible and
exacting vocation and who, through their character and services, have
maintained the standard of the profession at a high mark in this
vigorous young commonwealth. The consistency of the statement finds
definite voucher in consideration of the status of Doctor Dicken, who
has signally dignified and honored his profession during somewhat
more than decade of active and successful practice in Oklahoma City
and who, as a representative position and surgeon of high
attainments, is fully in titled to recognition in this history of
Oklahoma. A previously published record gives so effective and
estimate that there is all of consistency in reproducing at this
juncture quotations therefrom, with a slight paraphrase:

"Dr. Dicken as been established in the practice of his profession in
Oklahoma City sense 1901, the year that marked his reception of the
degrees of Doctor of Medicine from the College of Physicians and
Surgeons in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. His period of novitiate
was brief as he quickly gained success in practice and became
specially skilled in the domain of surgery. His ambition to achieve
the highest possible proficiency in his chosen calling led him to
withdraw for a time from active practice in order to afford himself
of technical advantages and privileges through which he has
significantly advanced himself in the theory and practice of the most
modern systems of medical and surgical science, besides which his
acquirements have made him a most valuable factor in educational work
of his profession in an objective way. in 1905 the Doctor did
effective post-graduate work in leading institutions in New York
City, and in 1907 he made a trip abroad for further clinical
experience and research work. In Vienna, Austria, he devoted special
attention to observing and assisting in clinical operations in
gynecology surgery, in the K. K. Allgemeines Krankenhaus, and he also
carried his investigations into other prominent medical and surgical
institutions of Europe. Energetic and self-abnegating in the
prosecution of his studies and his practice, Dr. Dicken has attained
to enviable success in his profession during the period of his
residence in the capital city of Oklahoma, and both by training and
natural aptitude he ranks among the leaders in his profession,
without reference to local confines. For some time the Doctor
occupied the chair of genealogy in a medical department of the
Epworth University, this department being now the medical school of
the University of Oklahoma. He is a local surgeon for the Missouri,
Kansas and Texas Railroad, is a member of the Oklahoma County Medical
Society, the Oklahoma State Medical Society, the Medical Associative
of the Southwest, the American Medical Association, and is a Fellow
of the American College of Surgeons. He continues a close an
appreciative student and each year marks a distinct advancement in
his reputation for skill and ability in the vocation of which he is
most worthy and popular representative."

Dr. William Edward Dicken was born in Woodford County, Kentucky, on
the 18th of January, 1872, and is a son of Rev. Charles w. and Mary
(WILLIAMS) Dicken. His father was a clergyman of the Baptist Church,
was born and reared in Campbell County, Kentucky, and for many years
was a prominent and honored representative of the ministry of his
church in Kentucky, Missouri and other states. In the schools of his
native commonwealth Doctor Dicken acquired his early education and
thereafter pursued higher academic studies at Ogden College, in the
fine little City of Bowling Green, that state. Proper literary
education is now fully recognized as virtually a prerequisite for the
absorption and assimilation of the vast and varied knowledge
essential to success in the medical profession, and Doctor Dicken is
fortunate in having been able to fortify himself most fully along
academic lines. In the State of Missouri he continued his studies in
turn in Westminster College, at Fulton, and at Liberty, that state,
he completed his classical course in William Jewell College. He had
early given himself also, and with such characteristic energy and
ambition, to the study of medicine that in 1896, when twenty-four
years of age, he was enabled to pass the required examination that
entitled him to practice medicine in Missouri. In that year he
established himself as a practitioner at Kahoka, Clark County, that
state, and later he was graduated in the College of Physicians and
Surgeons in the City of St. Louis, from which staunch institution he
received his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1901, as previously
noted in this context. In his large and representative practice in
Oklahoma City the doctor gives special attention to surgery and his
reputation in this domain rests securely upon his splendid record of
success in the performing of many delicate operations of both major
and minor order.

Doctor Dicken constantly avails himself of the best of the standard
and periodical literature of his profession and has personally made
many valuable contribution to medical and surgical advancement,
especially through the medium of numerous papers which he has
carefully prepared and has read before the various medical societies
with which he is identified and which, with other direct
contributions, have been published in medical journals. Among the
more noteworthy of such contributions may be mentioned those
designated by the following titles: "Some Steps Toward the Prevention
of Post-Operative Exudates," published in the New York Medical
Journal of November 26, 1910; "Intestinal Obstruction," a paper read
before the Oklahoma State Medical Society in 1912; "A Plea for Larger
Abdominal Incisions and Less Drainage," read before the Medical
Association of the Southwest, at Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1913, and
published in the Medical Herald of February, that year; "Esophago-
Tracheal Fistula," a case report published in the Medical Herald of
December, 1914; "A Study of Fifty Cases of Pyosalpink," published in
the Journal of Oklahoma State Medical Society, March, 1914; and "The
Simplified Baldy-Webster Operation," read before the Oklahoma County
Medical Society in 1914. In connection with the presentation of the
last mentioned paper Doctor Dicken exhibited an instrument devised by
himself and designated as a uterine elevator. This device he proved
to be of great value in simplifying the operation described and the
instruments are now on sale by the leading medical-instrument
establishments of the country. The doctor maintains his offices at
518-20 State National Bank Building, Oklahoma City, and his residence
is at 410 West Tenth Street.

An appreciative student of the history and teachings of the time-
honored Masonic fraternity, Doctor Dicken is prominently identified
with various bodies of the same, his York Rite affiliations being
with Oklahoma City Lodge No. 36, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons;
Cyrus Chapter No. 7, Royal Arch Masons; and Oklahoma Commandery No.3,
Knights Templar. In the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite he has
received at the time of this writing the degrees up to and including
the fourteenth, and he holds membership also in India Temple, Ancient
Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, as well as in the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

At Kahoka, Missouri, in 1899, was solemnized the marriage of Doctor
Dicken to Miss Bertha M. SMITH, who was born and reared in Lewis
County, that state. They have one child, Virginia Mildred.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Carolyn Smith Burns on November 30, 1998.