Today marks Robert’s and my 16th transplant anniversary. Two healthy kidneys between us, still going strong.
the end of Black kidney function
the health care system has the black community in a choke hold
ICYMI: This post originally published August 4, 2020 on the California Health Care Foundation blog here.
It was the Black woman’s third trip to the emergency department because she was feeling short of breath. She was starting to panic. She knew the COVID-19 death toll was climbing and that it was far worse for Black people than white people, and yet the doctors told her to go home again. But this time she pleaded, “If you all don’t admit me to the hospital, I’m going to die. I can’t breathe.”
my final straw
“My pending exodus from academic medicine after 15 years…” This is how I started my piece recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. I wrote my thoughts on what academia needs to do to right the wrongs that centuries of racism and anti-Blackness have created, but not on the experience that served as my final straw. A story in the news since then makes me want to share it now…