When Dr. Brickler arrived in Tallahassee, most of the roads were still unpaved. In a July 2019 interview with WFSU, Brickler described the city at the time as not a pleasant place because of the state’s Jim Crowe laws.
“We took care of a lot of things primary care patients were not expected to take care of, so there was a lot of learning on the job.”
Brickler would drive to rural communities to care for people in need. When still a medical student, Brickler would sometimes practice in Tallahassee. During one visit, he was called to a rural area in the region where he encountered a woman who was struggling to deliver her baby.
“We went into this little clearing where there was this small cabin, a gunshot house…and over in the corner in the dark was this lady who’d delivered the head of this huge, gigantic baby. And after a considerable amount of support from the doctors...we got the baby delivered and it weighed more than 18 lbs," he recalled.
The baby was stillborn, and cases like this one were tragically common at the time.
“Patients in the country didn’t have support…the obstetrical complications we faced were much more severe than they had to be if patients had been given more and better care," said Brickler.
In another case, he attended a white man who came to the Florida A&M hospital who was having a stroke. Brickler said he tended the man all night until the family came the next day, and promptly fired him. Yet the doctor received gratitude for saving the life of a white Florida State University student who was in a car accident near his Southside practice. His work was praised in the paper.
Living with humility
“I think the most important thing to realize is, as part of his giving nature, he always seemed to give people what they needed when they needed it," said Dr. A.J. Brickler, Dr. Brickler's son. Both are physicians.
Speaking to WFSU Tuesday, A.J. Brickler recalls those early days when he would watch his father work in the emergency room while he and his siblings waited in the car.
“He would take care of a person who was shot or injured. It was more than just OBGYN. They took care of everything. Matter of fact, he was also the team physician for the Florida A&M [University] Rattler football team," A.J. Brickler recounted.
"He has a broad experience in a lot of areas in medicine before settling into the OB practice. but I think the broad experience also helped him take care of obstetric patients. He knew so much about everything.”
The elder Brickler graduated from Howard University—an historically Black college—and received his medical degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville — the oldest Black medical school in the South. It was during his time in the U.S. Air Force that Brickler took up obstetrics. And after his service ended, he joined with his father-in-law, Dr. R.L. Anderson, and came to Tallahassee to work at Florida A&M University’s hospital, which is now the Foote-Hilyer administrative building. He would later become part of the small group of Black physicians who integrated Tallahassee Memorial.
Dr. A.D. Brickler was a runner, and in 1996 carried the Olympic Torch through North Florida. In a statement, TMH CEO Mark O’Bryant said Dr. Brickler never saw himself as a hero, but he was one. Brickler retired in 2019 when he was 90, and that longevity, says his son, was due to the love of the work and healthy living.
“He really loved taking care of patients and teaching young physicians. Working with the residents he taught was a big part of that too.”
A.D. Bricker is survived by his wife, and four children. A memorial service in his honor is slated for Saturday at 10 a.m. Florida A&M University’s College of Pharmacy.
