To our young leaders yearning and fighting for justice,
When the dust settles down and you have time to look back at the events that unfolded since the murder of #GeorgeFloyd, I want you to look at a few things.
I want you to look at the system and where it has failed George. I want you to look at the police and how they’re trained to use deadly force without oversight. The local and regional politics that influence it.
The legal system that could have been the check/balance holding the police accountable for their brutality. The coroner or medical examiner whose autopsy results could’ve been delivered without speculation and victim-blaming.
And the judicial system which will determine whether justice will be served for George or not.
I want you to think about these as part of the long-term strategy to eradicating racial injustice.
While voting now may help in the short-term, implementing systemic change will require long-term strategies. If there’s anything consistent about changing institutions it’s that there will be immense resistance.
Policies may be passed to appease the uproar but may not have any real effect because a culture of racism remains intact.
There is a system that upholds racism.
Systemic change will require long-term persistent advocacy, especially from within institutions and by people who are directly affected by the issue at hand, in this case racism.
So I want you all to think about how you will be part of that long-term strategy. How can you affect change from within? What part of this system can you tackle?
How can you work towards changing the culture from within so that you’re rooting out the evil that is racism and not merely placing bandaids with toothless policies?
Your leadership will be needed now more than ever. And we’re here to support you all.
About three years ago, attending a women’s empowerment conference made me swear off of going to anymore women’s empowerment conferences…a 🧵
It began as a great conference focused on empowering women to advance in medicine. All the gaps were addressed. Gender pay gap, research funding gap, awards gap, leadership gap. Great! We’re moving beyond pay disparity!
Or so I thought.
After hearing the keynote and most of the prime time lectures, I was perplexed. I know all these topics are important. But as this was a conference filled with women from all backgrounds, I felt there was something missing.
Friends of #MedTwitter
We talk a lot about the dearth of Black docs & the leaky pipeline but not how academia pushes out the ones who actually make it to med school & beyond. Many URiM students/trainees suffer in silence due to a lack of support & the real threat of retaliation.
We’re working with a resident who is the only Black trainee &one of two IMGs who is experiencing an extremely hostile work environment. We’re looking for program directors, assoc program directors & anyone else who can help us in assisting this trainee.
We would appreciate any and all assistance. Please reach out to anyone of us through DM
For my chief year grand rounds presentation, a mentor suggested that I use it as an opportunity to share my experience going through surgery training and having children. He suggested I share both the good the bad.
I loved this idea. It felt like we would be doing an M&M conference on our lived experiences as humans going through professional and personal challenges. I liked the idea that what was seen as a “problem” (pregnant surgery resident)...
became an opportunity for us to change our culture to be more inclusive. I wanted to include the fact that we were able to increase awareness of surgery boards accommods for pregnancy during training among our residents, and as a result more women were considering fam planning.
When we say minoritized and racialized people in medicine, regardless of position, are afraid to speak up because of #retaliation,
👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾 is what we mean.
Academia will destroy someone’s career and livelihood before they even think about becoming introspective or take any responsibility for their bias and racism.
Dr. @ayshakhoury does not deserve this. Her students don’t deserve to lose their teacher. And her community doesn’t deserve losing a good physician.
I got a call from one of our NPs that a neurosurgeon was berating him and the icu nurses about why his postop patient was in the icu. He brought one to tears and was yelling at the charge as well. So I called.
Nsg: Who the hell transferred my postop pt to the ICU?
Me: I did.
Nsg: Who gave you permission to transfer my patient?
Me: I’m the admitting physician. You’re a consultant. Are you aware of their other injuries?
Nsg: Listen, hun, I don’t know who you think you are but...
Me: First, don’t call me hun. Second, it’s Dr. Hussein