Doctors highlight medical inequalities during Black History Month

Despite making up 14% of the United States, the National Library of Medicine says only 5% of doctors are African American. In honor of Black History Month, UNMC highlighted some of the best and brightest Black physicians in Omaha.These doctors talked about their journeys through the medical field while also shedding light on problems within the industry.These local physicians said African Americans face barriers to medical care, such as accessibility and cost.”I understand that I work for an institution that has not always been nice to us,” said Janae Donaldson, a psychotherapist.But they all said the biggest obstacle is trust.”We’ve lost many, many communities that we truly should be caring for, so we need to repair that trust,” said Alberto Marcelin, family physician.According to these doctors, this is a consequence of poor research.”The beginning of our specialty was doing, you know, many egregious surgeries on enslaved women,” gynecologist Candace Giles said.Now, doctors are putting in quality work that they aim to make ethically and without bias, but that data isn’t being used.”Part of the problem is that we worked so hard to provide the care that they deserve, but yet we can’t reach the people that truly need it,” Marcelin said.Marcelin said rebuilding that trust starts by coming face-to-face with the community. “We want to be part of this institution,” Marcelin said. “We want to be part of the people that we’re serving, and we want to be part of the community.””I think that goes a long way to just start the conversation of saying that we’re here, we’re on the same team,” Giles said.Marcelin said panels like this one bring people to them, but the outreach can’t stop there.”It’s very important to bring them, the people, to us, and those who can’t come to us, we have to go find them,” Marcelin said.