First published 2024
Dr. Uché Blackstock grew up in Brooklyn watching her mother lead an organization of Black women physicians. She and her twin sister Oni assumed they would become doctors too. At Harvard Medical School, the sisters became the first Black mother-daughter legacies in the institution's history. But medical school never taught Uché about the systemic barriers that keep Black women at just 2 percent of all U.S. physicians. Working as an ER doctor and later as an academic medicine professor, she witnessed how racist practices create worse health outcomes for Black Americans than any other group. The flawed system endangered communities like her own. During the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, Blackstock transformed from practicing physician into health equity advocate. She exposes the critical intersection where racism meets healthcare in America.
Genres: medical, african-american, non-fiction, biography-memoir, health, 21st-century, academic, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: advocacy, personal-journey, social-commentary
Setting: Brooklyn, Harvard Medical School
Period: 21st-century
304 pages · Hardcover · Viking
Content warnings: racism, sexism