fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Stories
  4. /
  5. Surviving Blackness in Medicine

Surviving Blackness in Medicine

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Omar M. Young and Camille A. Clare are two Black academic OB/GYNs from different walks of life. Together, they offer their respective observations on what it means to be Black in medicine. “Through speaking from our lived experiences, we hope to help those who have historically been minoritized in medicine know that they are seen, that they are heard and that their experiences are valid.”

I survived — Omar M. Young

The sun was gloriously blinding, and the air as calm as could be on a warm June morning, more than a decade ago. Having finished packing my tiny Ford Focus, I returned to my soon-to-be-former apartment one last time to gather the rest of my belongings. After turning off the lights and locking the door, I felt a sea of emotions wash over me.

You really did that, I told myself. It’s over! You survived.

Finishing medical residency is filled with myriad emotions: the thrill of accomplishment, a sense of loss, trepidation, wonder. Think about it: For four years, you have essentially ceded nearly every aspect of your life to scheduling chiefs, well-meaning nurses, the whims and preferences of countless attending physicians, faceless administrators and a healthcare system that can leave you feeling powerless. Imagine doing this while being Black.

I survived.

Every Black person in this country has a story of how they’ve experienced racism. For my own part, not until I became a physician did I encounter such extensive racism. It ranged from having some patients refuse to let me touch them, to being more harshly critiqued than my white peers, to being told by a gynecologic oncology attending to “go back to Africa.” Looking back, it’s a miracle that I graduated residency with my mind intact.

I survived…but is survival the highest goal to which a Black resident should aspire?

I emphatically say no.

The racism didn’t magically stop once I finished training. If anything, since I’ve been an attending physician myself, it’s become even more pervasive. I see it in how patients of color are treated in clinical spaces, where their concerns are often downplayed or dismissed, leading to adverse outcomes and continued distrust in the healthcare system. I see it, too, in how with some white patients, before I can win their trust in my medical skills, I have to prove my right to be there.

“You’re actually the doctor? Really?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am.”

Dealing with this day in and day out is grueling to the soul. What is different for me since I’ve become an attending, though, is that now, when I witness or experience micro- and macroaggressions, I have the agency to do something about it.

Because of my own experiences of dealing with racism as a resident, I have committed my career to educating the next generation of physicians.

As an educational role model, as a person of color in leadership, I believe that my sheer presence within the space of American healthcare is a call for change. Our society and our profession talk at length about diversity, equity and inclusion, but words without actions are hollow. By mentoring Black medical students during their first forays into clinical and educational research, by sponsoring trainees seeking career advancement, by promoting political advocacy through grassroots work and by improving an inherently unequitable system equitably, I am doing my best to bring about real change.

Since 1619, when the first forcibly transported Africans stepped onto the soil now called America, Black people have been struggling to survive. Success is more than surviving; it is flourishing despite difficult circumstances. It is thriving, living your passions out loud.

When people of color complete their medical training, I want them to be able to say more than: “I survived.”

My dream is that they will say, resoundingly: “I thrived.”

Surviving and Thriving — Camille A. Clare

Twenty-five years ago, as a third-year resident, I walked into a patient’s room on labor and delivery and was told that she didn’t want me to take care of her. What had I done? What could have caused this reaction in this white patient, to whom I had already given good care during my twelve-hour shift on the floor?

My white attending, a physician in private practice, broke the news to me separately, as if the patient were unable to take ownership of her own request. The physician offered no explanation or reassurance; I was left to wrestle with my self-doubts on my own.

This episode was just the latest note in a chorus of doubt and disbelief that I’d heard for years. As a high-school senior, one of just two Black students in my honors classes, I’d learned that my classmates thought little of my high grades and my acceptances to several excellent colleges. In college, my white classmates questioned my interest in medicine and, again, couldn’t believe that I’d been accepted to multiple medical schools. On the first day of medical school, as I came into class and sat down, a white former classmate with whom I’d taken premed courses shot me a look of astonished disbelief, as if to say, What are you doing here? She said nothing, but I’ve seen that look on many faces throughout my career.

Over the course of many conversations with other Black medical professionals, including my “brother” Dr. Young, I’ve concluded that the concept of survival plagues many of us. Our level of medical knowledge is doubted, as is our ability to share space with our white counterparts and to succeed on the same terms. This doubt is conveyed through questions such as “Where did you go to school?” or “Who did you know?” (The underlying thought seemed to be: “Who afforded you the same opportunities as the white students?”)

I cannot escape my Blackness, from the minute I wake up to the moments when I drive my car to the hospital and greet my first patient or colleague of the day, I’ve had to defend my management as a Black woman attending physician and have been extensively questioned during resident presentations on mortality and morbidity conferences; some colleagues have muttered in disbelief at the teaching awards, accolades and accomplishments I’ve accrued while barely surviving.

By “barely surviving,” I mean that despite my outer successes, the emotional and psychological stress and vulnerability that comes from sharing my thoughts even in a piece such as this can be exhausting. In this inner state of siege, I feel as if there is no room for error or mistakes—no room for grace. My fellow Black physicians and I are tasked with representing not only ourselves as individuals but also our community members and our colleagues, past, current and future, who may or may not be afforded similar opportunities.

I am empowered as a Black woman chair of a department of obstetrics and gynecology to operate in the survival mode that is needed when mentoring Black students and residents, fellows and faculty. I have had the additional responsibility, and occasional burden, of leading as I climb—of offering opportunities to others like myself due to our shared identity. These mentorship and sponsorship responsibilities come at the expense of my career goals as one of the few Black women physicians who occupy these roles.

Even during the period when I was a diversity-and-inclusion dean at my institution, I wasn’t spared the need to operate in survival mode. And even now, I continue to be othered in spaces where I continue to feel less than, and I feel as if I must code-switch and cannot be my authentic self. For me, this othering has meant that I’ve had to be extraordinary in order to dispel the notion that no one from my background could possibly have accomplished the successes that I have. In short, I continue to be a unicorn.

Despite all of this, I try to live by Maya Angelou’s words: “My mission in life is not merely to survive but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, some style.”

And so we spend our days, my “brother” and I, two Black obstetrician-gynecologists among others, surviving and thriving.

Subscribe

Get the latest issue of Pulse delivered to your inbox, free.

Omar M. Young is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, NC, where he serves as the vice-chair of education and associate residency program director. A maternal-fetal medicine specialist by training, he is a clinician-educator dedicated to providing significant and impactful educational experiences. His career has been focused on ensuring that the next generation of learners understands the interconnectedness and intersectionality of clinical medicine and the tenets of equity and inclusion.

Camille A. Clare is a tenured professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, where she serves as the chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology. She also is a professor of health policy and management at the Downstate Health Sciences University School of Public Health.

Comments

4 thoughts on “Surviving Blackness in Medicine”

  1. Thank you thank you both for this important writing. It’s a sad statement to say that the white medical community (including myself, a white Downstate grad) needs to hear this and be self aware of our participation in medical racism, even unwittingly. You are shining stars

  2. Thank you for sharing your stories. It is shameful how racism persists and everyone is worse for it
    As a white physician I work to speak out against racism and be very aware of my white privilege
    I fear things will get worse over the next four years.

  3. This is such an incredible story the truth of it is embarrassing to me as a white reader. I can only offer a meaningless apology from where I live, in Oregon and hope that doctors of color in this state are more fairly treated and respected.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Stories

Popular Tags
Scroll to Top