Woke WOC Docs

Dr. Rhea Boyd has known ever since she was young that she wanted to be a pediatrician. Her grounding motivation? Making the world safer for children, especially Black kids and children who face various social and structural stressors and oppression. In this episode, we learn more about Rhea’s journey into and through medicine, including how she carved her own pathway to explore the intersection of racial justice and health equity from the creation of her own college major to her multi-faceted career today. 

This episode also highlights Rhea’s recent advocacy efforts that challenge medical institutions to go beyond current "diversity and inclusion” paradigms and “underrepresentation” rhetoric to naming the consequences of racial inequity and racism. Rhea advocates that institutions acknowledge and urgently act upon the violent racist exclusion of Black folks from institutions and stark racial health disparities in order to truly achieve equity and justice.

Bio:

Rhea W. Boyd, MD, MPH, FAAP is a pediatrician and child and community health advocate who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. She works clinically at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and serves as the Chief Medical Officer of San Diego 211 and the Director of Equity and Justice for, The Children's Trust, a campaign to expand behavioral health access to every child in California. She travels to teach students and trainees about the relationship between structural inequity and health and is active in the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), serving on the board of her local chapter, California Chapter 1, and as a member of the AAP's national Executive Committee on Communications and Media.

In addition to her clinical, policy, and teaching work, Dr. Boyd enjoys participating in community-based advocacy. Over the past 5 years, she helped organize a group of public health officials, clinicians community advocates, and funders to evaluate and address the impact of harmful police practices and policies on child and public health. She also worked with a San Francisco-based tech non-profit to increase access to social services across the Bay Area as a means to improving child and community health. Dr. Boyd is the author of the blog Rhea.MD (rheamd.wordpress.com), where she critically engages the intersections of health and justice. She is also active on twitter @RheaBoydMD.

Dr. Boyd graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Africana Studies and Health from the University of Notre Dame. She earned a M.D. at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency at University of California, San Francisco, where she participated in the Pediatric Leadership for the Underserved Program. In 2017, Dr. Boyd graduated from the Commonwealth Fund Mongan Minority Health Policy Fellowship at Harvard University’s School of Public Health where she received an M.P.H.

During her first year of medical school, India has had a busy, yet fulfilling transition moving from the East Coast to the Bay Area. In this episode, India tells us more about the advocacy pursuits she’s continued in medical school and her new journey of exploring self-love. In particular, we learn more about how her upbringing and sociology background are foundations for her work on harm reduction as essential to the future of medicine, health justice, and healing. You’ll also hear India's reflections on how her Dominican family values are central to her practices of generosity, love, and self-care. At the end of this episode, you’ll hear a poem from her own e-mail subscription called Dulce, which she describes as "an act of resistance that believes in the power of self-infatuation; nourishes the acceptance of what is, what is not, and what could be; and honors womxn of color through prose collected from our own sisterly community."

To subscribe to Dulce, go to: https://mailchi.mp/a0dcd6ed980e/dulce

Bio:

India Perez-Urbano is a first year medical student at UCSF. India graduated from Harvard University in 2016; after graduation she returned to her hometown of Rockland County, NY to found a harm reduction organization through which she successfully advocated for the first syringe exchange program in the county. She is a passionate advocate for the rights and health of people who use drugs and is excited to continue this work through the purview of medicine and community health.

Dr. Aisha Mays is a passionate advocate for the health and well-being of young people. While she wears many hats as a doctor, researcher, mentor, and advocate, what strikes us most is how she melds her advocacy work and career with her hobbies and strives for balance throughout her life journey. In this episode, Aisha describes her journey into and through medicine, including childhood experiences that affirmed the need for more Black womxn in medicine. In addition, she shares her adamant hopes to challenge and break down silos by blending art and creativity in her work, particularly as the founding Medical Director of Dream Youth Clinic, a youth-led and youth-centered clinic in Downtown Oakland. As she’s been able to meld her career with her own hobbies, she is a testament to her own guiding philosophies of being free-spirited, tenacious, and balanced in medicine.

Bio:

Dr. Aisha Mays is a core faculty member at the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program, clinical researcher at the UCSF Bixby Center for Reproductive Health, and founding Medical Director of Dream Youth Clinic in Oakland. Her current research centers on advocacy for girls who are at risk or engaged in sexual exploitation. Dr. Mays entered the world of research through her clinical practice at the Native American Health Center, where she began to have questions about the clinical care and outcomes of her adolescent patients. She believes in equitable reproductive health care access for all women regardless of age or socioeconomic status. Dr. Mays is a member of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals Clinical Advisory Committee, and faculty in Physicians for Reproductive Health Adolescent and Reproductive Sexual Health Education Program.

Happy 2019 y’all. We’re so excited to launch Season 2 of Woke WOC Docs. In this episode, you’ll learn more about something y’all really should heard a long time ago: who we are as hosts and why this podcast matters to us in the first place. In spite of our diverse journeys coming into medicine (from community organizing to bioengineering to family hopes and dreams), we all came together to start Woke WOC Docs as a project to ground ourselves and transform medicine by the aspirations, hopes, and dreams of ourselves, ancestors, and communities we represent. You’ll hear more about what excites us, frustrates us, and gives us strength as we continue our journeys in medicine. Here’s to embarking on a new year of growth together.

Check out Bernie’s article in The Tempest: Medicine won’t be able to progress until it surrounds itself with women of color (https://thetempest.co/2019/02/03/now-beyond/science/medicine-wont-be-able-to-progress-until-it-surrounds-itself-with-women-of-color/)

#Medicine, #WokeWOCDocs, #MelaninInMedicine, #Health, #HealthJustice

Bios:

Bernadette (Bernie) Lim is a creator, healer, and warrior. She was born in Los Angeles and grew up in a family with a Filipino and Chinese immigrant heritage. She's an MD/MSc. student at the Joint Medical Program (JMP) at the UC San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine and UC Berkeley School of Public Health. She graduated from Harvard in 2016 in human biology, gender studies, and global health and pursued a Fulbright Scholarship to India after graduation. She is a founder and lead student organizer of the Freedom School for Intersectional Medicine and Health Justice and Freedom Community Clinic. Previously, she was also the founder and Executive Director of Women SPEAK. She is a plant mama and enjoys R&B/soul music, playing piano, yoga, and the occasional turn-up.

Nicole Carvajal was born and raised in Van Nuys, CA. Living in a medically underserved community and the daughter of immigrants, she experienced health inequities first-hand. She attended community college and later transferred to UC Riverside to pursue her interests in bioengineering. Upon graduation, she moved to the East Coast to conduct research at the NIH – NIBIB, where she focused on biophysical research involving the biological applications of atomic force microscopy. She also found opportunities to interact with patients and physicians. It was through these interactions that she saw a necessity for physicians with her background and life experiences that helped reaffirm her interest in pursuing a medical degree. She moved to San Francisco to participate in the UCSF Post Baccalaureate Program where she learned more about issues affecting underserved communities. She later worked as a staff research associate in a UCSF Cancer Immunotherapy laboratory and volunteered as a mentor for community programs promoting higher education.

Ivie Tokunboh was born and raised in Southern California. As the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, she has always felt a kinship with other first-generation Americans and exploring what it means to navigate the world with a multi-cultural perspective. During her four years at Harvard, Ivie studied Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology and Social Anthropology. While there, she invested time in groups that she held near and dear to her heart, namely the hip-hop dance community, the Catholic community, the Nigerian community, and the Harvard Square Homeless Clinic. After graduation, she worked as a clinical research coordinator and research assistant for UCLA Stroke Center. It was there that she was reminded of the value of the clinician-patient relationship first-hand as she often served as a liaison for communication between physicians and patients. She recently moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco to pursue medical school. When not in class or studying, Ivie enjoys listening to music, singing, dancing, writing and running.

Jess Valdez is only at the beginning of her journey in medicine, yet she has found motivation and grounding in her purpose by always remembering and honoring the people, communities, and experiences that have made her who she is today. In addition to being a medical student at UCSF and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, Jess embraces her identities as the compassionate sunshine friend and vulnerability queen. In this episode, we talk more about her windy journey into and through medicine and important topics such as pursuing a postbac program, reframing mental breakdowns as spiritual awakenings, and emphasizing why reproductive justice for womxn of color from immigrant and underserved communities matters. At the end of this episode (39:14), Jess shares a beautiful poem she wrote in response to the separation of families crisis among asylum-seeking families that continues to this day.

This will be the last Woke WOC Docs episode of 2018. Thank you for helping us achieve 1,000+ plays in a little over a month since the release of our trailer! We're deeply grateful and are wishing all of you a joyous, restful next few weeks. In the meantime, please e-mail and comment us with any feedback and suggestions. We would love to hear from you. See y'all in 2019!

Bio:

Jessica Valdez is a rising MS3 from Calabasas, CA. She attended the University of San Diego and graduated in 2013 with a degree in Biology. Since joining the PRIME-US program at UCSF, she has served as the Community Service Co-Chair for LMSA, joined White Coats for Black Lives, and helped organize the Mental Illness Among Us student-led panel. While Jessica is still unsure of a medical specialty, her interests focus on women’s health and reproductive justice, especially for women of color.

Dr. Kim Chang is a family medicine physician at Asian Health Services (AHS) in Oakland, CA. In this episode, we learn how her experiences as a doctor and medical director at AHS has shaped her work according to their mission: to serve and advocate for the medically underserved. In this episode, Dr. Chang tells us more about her love for community health centers and health policy work in human trafficking and immigration health.

We have a *special request* in this episode as well. The Trump administration has continued their anti-immigration sentiment through a policy called public charge, which seeks to have lawful permanent residence, also known as green-card status, to be denied to greater numbers of legal immigrants for having received public assistance (e.g. Section 8 Housing, Medicaid, Medicare Part D, food stamps). Asian Health Services has created a website to add your comments challenging the Trump administrations’s expansion of the public charge policy. Tune in from 40:42 to learn more.

OPPOSE PUBLIC CHARGE!

Please add your comments by December 10 here: https://aapiprogressiveaction.salsalabs.org/publiccharge-ahs/index.html.

Bio:

Kimberly Chang, M.D., M.P.H., is a family physician at Asian Health Services (AHS) in Oakland, California. Previously, Dr. Chang was a Commonwealth Fund Mongan Fellow in Minority Health Policy at Harvard Medical School and Clinic Director at the Frank Kiang Medical Center (FKMC) of AHS. Her health systems experience includes directing the start-up of the FKMC, expanding patients' language access to 10 Asian languages, and directing the implementation of policies, procedures, and protocols into clinical operations. In addition, she provided care for many commercially sexually exploited children and is a co-founder and executive committee member of Health, Education, Advocacy, Linkages (HEAL) Trafficking. Dr. Chang has trained thousands of frontline multidisciplinary professionals on the health care intersect with human trafficking across the United States and internationally to the Compact of Free Association nations in the Western Pacific with the National District Attorneys Association. She served on a technical working group for the Administration for Children and Families, developing a pilot training for health care professionals on human trafficking. Her presentations and publications have focused on cultural competency, human trafficking issues, underserved populations, and global health issues. Most recently, Dr. Chang was elected as the Vice Speaker of the House on the Executive Board of the National Association of Community Health Centers, as well as selected to serve on the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children and Youth in the United States.

Dr. Zoë Julian is currently finishing up her OB/GYN residency at UCSF. Yet, in spite of her busy clinical schedule, she finds time to pause, telling us about the importance of empathy and unraveling existing imbalances of power and privilege in not only institutions of power like medicine, but in her own personal life and relationships. In this episode, Zoë shares her wisdom and experiences on naming privilege while fighting oppression, addressing imposter syndrome, and self-care.

Bio:

Zoë is currently finishing up her last year of residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at University of California, San Francisco. She’s benefited from some incredible mentorship, and been able to conduct research on climate of equity and inclusion across residency programs, design justice-oriented curriculum in sexual and reproductive health, and pursue a Certificate in Health Equity Studies. She’s really looking forward to additional training in health equity research while continuing a clinical practice in general obstetrics and gynecology in service of the communities she’s most committed to. She’s a Black queer woman looking to continually decolonize herself and medicine in the process.

Dr. Monica Hahn first and foremost describes herself as radical, yet this description is no surprise considering her work as an Assistant Clinical Professor at UCSF in the Department of Family & Community Medicine, ethnic studies scholar activist, and salsa and capoeira extraordinaire. Together, we explore her journey into and through medicine alongside remarking on topics such as her own activism work before medical school, issues of race-based medicine, Afro-Cuban salsa dancing, why pre-medical education is problematic, how students are critical mentors to professors/teachers, why doctors who aren’t mothers can only give so much breastfeeding advice, and her own memorable clinical experiences.

Please note:

At 45:40, Dr. Hahn would like listeners to know that the appropriate language referring to her patient she was caring for is as a transgender man, not as a transgender male.

Links to some acronyms we mention in the podcast:

UCSF PRIME-US (Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved) Program: https://meded.ucsf.edu/prime-us-program

UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program (JMP):http://sph.berkeley.edu/jmp/home

The Freedom School for Intersectional Medicine and Health Justice: https://www.intersectionalmedicine.org

Bio:

Dr. Monica Hahn is an Assistant Clinical Professor at UCSF in the Department of Family & Community Medicine. As a family physician, HIV specialist, and Clinical Director of the Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center (PAETC), Monica’s work centers around promoting health and wellness for HIV-affected families with an emphasis on integrating HIV prevention and treatment, as well as sexual and reproductive wellness, into primary care. Her clinical experience includes co-directing the Family HIV Clinic, a family-oriented HIV primary care clinic at San Francisco General Hospital’s Family Health Center, and providing perinatal HIV care to people living with or affected by HIV as the lead clinician at HIVE Clinic, also based at San Francisco General Hospital. Monica co-directs an HIV specialty concentration training program for the UCSF Family & Community Medicine Residency Program. She serves as a research and career mentor to UCSF medical students as the Director of Inquiry and Evaluation for the PRIME Urban-Underserved program. Monica’s inspiration for becoming a physician-advocate is rooted in her personal experiences and work experiences in public health and social justice activism. Her work has focused on addressing health inequities in sexual and reproductive health for communities of color, with the goals of developing strategies for dismantling systemic oppression and structural violence to improve health and wellness for all. She completed her undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley with a major in Molecular & Cell Biology and a minor in Ethnic Studies. She earned her MPH at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, and earned her MD/MS at UCSF School of Medicine, where she was a participant in the UCSF PRIME Urban-Underserved program. She completed residency training in Family & Community Medicine at UCSF/San Francisco General Hospital. Her interests include STI/HIV prevention and treatment, reproductive justice, community-based participatory research, health and social justice policy/advocacy, and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in medical education.

Join us, Bernie and Nicole, every other week for a candid conversation with dope womxn of color in medicine. Together we'll learn more about their journeys in medicine and converse on how to challenge and transform medicine to be a better institution dedicated to health, social justice, and well-being.