"I am a Black Doctor. Donald Trump Is a Medical Threat." [View all]

[Nevilledog]

https://www.contrabandcamp.com/p/i-am-a-black-doctor-donald-trump

I am a Black doctor.

In a profession where Black women make up less than 3% of physicians, I don’t have the luxury of seeing myself as just “a doctor.” I have worked in federally qualified rural facilities treating migrant farm workers and in urgent-care clinics in middle-class Black communities, where access to any primary care physicians is rare. Treating low-wealth and indigent patients at a county-owned hospital in one of America’s Blackest cities, I can personally attest to the data showing that Black patients live longer in counties with Black doctors. I am a proud HBCU graduate, where 70% of African-American doctors acquired their degree, and earned a doctor of medicine degree and a master of science in health care quality and safety.

I served as a physician and officer in the U.S. Air Force, where Black women airmen make up less than 1% of officers. I currently work in a majority-Black city knowing that babies, Black men and Black women fare better under the care of Black doctors. Working in community health has been one of my greatest professional joys. While I am adamant about serving every individual with the dignity, respect and professionalism they deserve, I also understand how representation translates to quantifiable real-world health outcomes. Among the patients and communities patients I serve, being “a doctor” is not enough.

I am a Black doctor.

Over the course of my 28-year career working in private, county, state and federally funded medical facilities, I have also seen how politics can affect patients’ access to quality, available and affordable health care. I am sworn to deliver care regardless of race, ethnicity or political persuasion, so I don’t view health care as a partisan issue. But as someone who took an oath to “improve the public health” and “not let any lesser public or professional consideration interfere with my primary commitment,” it is my duty as a doctor and a Black doctor to warn my community of one of the greatest medical risk factors on the horizon: the Trump administration.

*snip*