As a part of the One Book One Campus initiative at CU Anschutz Medical Campus, I read Dr. Damon Tweedy’s memoir Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine.
As one would expect, this book contains an abundance of genuinely angering and heart-wrenching stories that highlight the healthcare disparities across racial lines that persist in our modern systems. These disparities reflect much of what I see in the world daily as a healthcare provider-in-training. However, a large portion of the book is about something that I cannot witness or experience: how Dr. Tweedy’s grappled with his race and what responsibility, if any, to the black community comes with that. After reading Dr. Tweedy’s journey, I have come to the conclusion that though our source of responsibility may come from a different place, what he, I, and many other healthcare providers share is the responsibility of knowledge and the caring to make an impact on those disparities. Many of the patient interactions in the book focus on the impact that a black doctor can have on black patients and it is clear that there are certain levels that I cannot connect with black, hispanic, or immigrant patients on. But as Dr. Tweedy discovers in the book, there are many alternatives to connect with patients: be that common interests or a genuine desire to learn their story. Those interactions are still only one of many ways to challenge the paths that our system perpetuates disparities.
Zachary Holloway 