Dr. Michelle Wilson is a recent graduate of Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt School of Medicine. She will continue her training with a residency in family medicine at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia.
Veronica Zaragovia/WLRN
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Veronica Zaragovia/WLRN
Dr. Michelle Wilson is a recent graduate of Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt School of Medicine. She will continue her training with a residency in family medicine at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia.
Veronica Zaragovia/WLRN
In South Florida, when people want to find a black doctor, they often end up contacting her through Adrienne Hibbert’s online website. black doctors in south florida.
“There’s a lot of black networking behind the scenes,” says Hibbert, who runs her own marketing company. “I don’t want them to be behind the scenes, so I’m pushing it to the front.”
Hibbert said she came up with the idea for the website after giving birth to her son 15 years ago. Her obstetrician at the time was white, and the hospital in suburban Miami did not welcome her as a black woman pregnant with her first child.
“They didn’t have any pictures of black women and their black children,” Hibbert says. “I want someone who understands my background. I want someone who understands the food I eat. I want someone who understands my upbringing and what my grandmother told me. .”
In addition to shared culture and values, Black physicians can provide Black patients with a sense of safety, legitimacy, and trust. Research shows that racism, discrimination, and unconscious bias continue to plague the U.S. health care system. unequal treatment for racial and ethnic minorities;
Black patients have had their complaints, symptoms, and pain ignored. is undertreated,and referenced less frequently For specialty care. Older black Americans still remember when hospitals and clinics were segregated in some parts of the country. Not to mention 40 years of seriously unethical medical failures and abuse. Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
But today, Black patients say too many clinicians can still behave in a dismissive, condescending or short-tempered manner, which does little to repair trust. . Some black patients say they would like to be treated by a black doctor if they could find one.
Hibbert is working on turning the website into a more comprehensive and searchable directory. She says her most popular specialist is an obstetrician-gynecologist. No.1 The phone call I received [for] I’m a black obstetrician and gynecologist. ”
For Black women, the effects of systemic racism can be evident in childbirth.they are 3 times In the United States, women are more likely to die after giving birth than white women.
nelson adams He is a Black obstetrician-gynecologist at Jackson North Medical Center in North Miami Beach, Florida. He understands that many women want a Black gynecologist, but says that’s not the only answer. “Black women wanted to hire Black doctors, but it was virtually impossible,” he says. “The numbers aren’t there.”
And while it helps, it’s not just a matter of recruiting more young black students into medicine and nursing, he says. He wants systemic change, and that means medical schools need to teach all students, regardless of race, culture or background, to treat patients with respect and dignity. In other words, as they themselves would like to be treated.
“The golden rule is to treat others as you would like them to treat you, and a doctor’s heart must be one of caring for people as one would want to be treated, and as one would want one’s family to be treated.” “I had to undergo treatment,” he says.
In the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 and the wave of protests and activism that followed, businesses, universities, nonprofits, and other American institutions have been forced to examine their own histories and policies regarding race. I started re-evaluating it. Medical school was no exception. In September, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine revamped its entire four-year medical school curriculum. incorporate Anti-racism training.
The new training is also now part of the curriculum at Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt School of Medicine in Boca Raton. Medical students there are taught to ask patients not only about their physical health, but also about their history and experiences. New questions may include “Have you ever felt discriminated against?” or “Do you feel comfortable communicating your needs?”
“A lot of things, it may be questions that we’ve never asked historically, but we need to start asking,” he says. Dr. Sarah Woodsenior associate dean for medical education at Florida Atlantic University.
Wood added that medical students begin learning about racism in healthcare in their first year, and as they progress, they also learn how to communicate with patients from different cultures and backgrounds.
These changes come after decades of racist education in medical schools across the country. Adams, an obstetrician-gynecologist, completed his training in Atlanta in the early 1980s. She said that if a Black woman went to a doctor or hospital complaining of pelvic pain, she was “likely to have a sexually transmitted disease, a sexually transmitted disease called pelvic inflammatory disease.” She recalls what she was taught. I have gonorrhea and chlamydia. ”
This initial assumption was consistent with a racist view of black women’s sexuality, an assumption that white women were exempt. “If the same symptoms appeared in a white, white young woman, the following assumptions would be made. do not have Because endometriosis is not a sexually transmitted disease, there is less stigma and less connection to patient behavior, Adams said.
Although such diagnostic rules of thumb are no longer taught, doctors can still bring unconscious racial bias into their interactions with patients, Adams said.
While medical schools are revamping their curricula, they are also trying to increase diversity within the school. Schmidt School of Medicine at Florida Atlantic was founded in 2012. Partnership with Florida A&M University, the state’s historically black college. Undergraduate students who want to become doctors receive guidance as they complete their pre-medical courses, and students who meet certain standards can enroll at Schmidt University after graduation.
Dr. Michelle Wilson followed that path and graduated from Schmidt School of Medicine this spring. She is headed to Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia, for her family medicine training. Wilson was drawn to her specialty because she can provide primary care as well as childbirth. She hopes to build a clinic that focuses on the needs of Black families.
“We code the switch, and I think being able to be that comfortable with patients is important in building long-term relationships with patients,” Wilson says.
“I think being able to relax and talk to patients like family really builds relationships, especially when patients want to come back and think, ‘I really like that doctor.’ You can.”
She also said she hopes her research will inspire the next generation of Black doctors.
“Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of black doctors,” Wilson says. “I’m kind of paving the way for other little Black girls who look like me who want to be doctors. I can let them know it’s possible. ”
This article is based on NPR’s Health Reporting Partnership. WLRN and Kaiser Health News (KHN).
