An Open Letter to Black Medicine: Modelling Inclusion, Pioneering Revolution

I once took a quiz to find a career that was the opposite of mine. As a pediatric surgeon, my supposed opposite was fashion modeling.

Recently, I watched Supreme Models, a documentary celebrating the Black women who transformed the fashion and beauty industries. These fashion models weren’t just beautiful—they understood the power of representation. And when designers tried to whitewash them out of the industry, they fought back together.

As I watched, I felt proud of their strength and resilience, proud to be a strong Black woman.

But I also felt something else: shame.

Because I belong to a profession filled with some of the world’s most intelligent, talented men and women of color, and we do not fight back like the models did as we are being pushed out of medicine.

It is Black History Month, 2025, and one day, we will look back on this moment in history with horror.

We are under attack from all sides.

Right now, an anti-vaccine individual with no medical education is on the verge of being confirmed as the leader of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—the very agency meant to protect the health of all Americans.

This is happening under a President who has handed over his power to a foreign-born billionaire, a man who believes medicine now has “two streams of testing” and that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have lowered the bar for medical education.

The consequences are already unfolding.

This fall, medical school admissions of Black students dropped by 11.6% compared to 2023—the first admissions cycle after the Supreme Court banned race-conscious admissions. This marks the third consecutive year of decline. Every day, we are being pushed out of medicine.

We all have stories.

Being mistaken for janitorial staff. Patients refusing our care. Having our qualifications constantly questioned. And the disrespect doesn’t stop there. Toxic workplaces and performative hospital diversity initiatives reduce us to window dressing. Black students and residents are judged more harshly, held back without recourse, and denied the mentorship and advocacy that others take for granted.

How can we protect our students and trainees when we can’t defend ourselves?

The NPDB: A Weapon Against Black Physicians

One of the most dangerous tools used against Black doctors is the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB)—a system created to track physicians with malpractice or misconduct issues. It was supposed to protect patients and be open to the public. Instead, it is a secret tool used by racist hospital systems that have weaponized it against Black physicians while shielding bad actors of their choosing.

Hospitals block Black doctors, filing NPDB reports over minor infractions or even outright fabrications. Meanwhile, physicians who commit actual harm—medical errors, sexual misconduct, fraud—are quietly allowed to resign and move on, unreported.

For a Black doctor, a single NPDB report, no matter how benign, can be a career death sentence—with no actual due process, no appeals system that works in our favor, and no protection from the very professional organizations that should be advocating for us. Sometimes, those organizations even put us in a more significant harm’s way.

Why Aren’t We Fighting Back?

We are under attack. And yet, instead of standing together, we fight each other for scraps, desperate to prove our worth in white spaces.

Too often, we pull each other down like crabs in a bucket instead of lifting each other.

And worse still, some of us are forced to prove our Blackness to gain support from our community—labeled not Black enough to deserve solidarity.

Colorism is worse than racism because it leaves you without a tribe.

Where Is Our Collective Rage?

How many times have Black women in medicine been labeled “angry” simply for standing their ground?

Medicine advances every 28 days, so why should we tolerate people who refuse to practice modern medicine? Medicine is a team sport, not a dictatorship.

Yet, we remain silent when the attacks against us are increasing and urgent.

We should be rallying Congress. We should be fighting back against hospital administrations that pit us against each other, making us believe that only one of us can survive in their elite spaces. We should be demanding reforms in the NPDB, ensuring it can no longer be used to destroy Black physicians’ careers.

We should be pushing back against for-profit hospital systems that trap new graduates in contracts akin to servitude, leaving them vulnerable, overworked, and unprotected.

I Refuse to Be Silent

I ask these questions because now I am angry.

I refuse to stand by while Black students and trainees are discouraged, marginalized, and made to feel unworthy.

I refuse to hide in the tall grass, hoping that I will somehow remain untouched if I follow the rules designed for my failure.

Spoiler alert: there is no safety zone for Black physicians.

Where is our collective fight? Where are the hospitals and organizations built for us? Why are they so quick to abandon those who have worked twice as hard to reach medicine’s highest levels?

Now is the time to stand up.

Now is the time to fight for each other.

We are not supermodels, but we can be just as fierce together.