Dr. Uché Blackstock was one of the first doctors to raise the alarm that COVID-19 was disproportionately impacting Black people. She spoke with Tonya Mosley about how medical schools contribute to inequities in health care, and what we can do about it. Her book is Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people.
Where they will say to me, but.
It can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is the history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Tanya Moseley.
When physician Uche Blackstock was a medical student at Harvard, she had a near death experience that gave her a sobering outlook on the state of medical care in our country.
Suffering from excruciating stomach pain, Blackstock took herself to the ER, and after hours of waiting, she was told she had a stomach bug and sent home.
But as the days went on, she felt worse and it would take two more ER visits before she was diagnosed with appendicitis.
And because it took so long for the diagnosis, her appendix ruptured, requiring emergency surgery, followed by a painful recovery that sent her back to the hospital.
This experience for Doctor Blackstock took her back to watching her mother, at 47 years old, die of leukemia.
Blackstock's mother was also a doctor, and while she had access to quality health care, Blackstock wonders whether her mother's childhood experiences with poverty and poor medical care, coupled with stress as a black woman may have contributed to her early death.
Doctor Uche Blackstock explores systemic inequities in her new book, a black physician reckons with racism in medicine.
Doctor Blackstock is the founder and CEO of Advancing health Equity.
She's held several titles at the New York University School of Medicine, serving as former associate professor, an emergency physician, and former faculty director of recruitment, retention and inclusion in the Office of Diversity Affairs.
Doctor Blackstock's twin sister, Oni, is also a physician, making the two, along with their mother, the first black mother daughter legacy to graduate from Harvard Medical School.
Doctor uche Blackstock, welcome to Fresh Air.
Thank you so much for having me.