Finding Each Other in the Darkness: An MLK Day Reflection

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2026. A day when we’re supposed to reflect on progress, on dreams deferred, and dreams realized. But I’m writing this in grief, and I’m writing this in rage, and I’m writing this because silence has never saved us.

A Life Lost, A Voice Silenced

Today, her name stays with us: Dr. Janell Green Smith.

Certified nurse-midwife. Mother. She was 31 when she died on New Year’s Day 2026 from complications after giving birth — the very thing she dedicated her life to making safer for others. Her death should have sparked a national conversation about maternal mortality, the healthcare providers we’re losing, and the mothers we’re failing. Instead, as news cycles churned, the nation turned its attention elsewhere. Another Black woman’s death became just another statistic. Another healthcare hero we couldn’t save.

The bitter irony is clear: a certified nurse-midwife who brought life into the world, guiding countless mothers through their most vulnerable moments, could not be saved herself. She developed pre-eclampsia during pregnancy and gave birth eight weeks early by C-section. Her baby daughter, Eden, survived and is fighting in the NICU. Days after delivery, Janell’s incision site ruptured. Emergency surgery followed, then cardiac arrest. She died on New Year’s Day.

Janell Green Smith understood something fundamental that our healthcare system continues to ignore: representation saves lives. Cultural concordance between patient and provider isn’t just about comfort — it’s about survival.

The Numbers Don’t Lie (But They Do Kill)

Black mothers in America are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white mothers. In 2023, Black women died at a rate of 50.3 per 100,000 live births. For white women, the rate was 14.5. This disparity persists across education levels, income brackets, and zip codes. Serena Williams, one of the greatest athletes of all time, nearly died after childbirth. Her concerns were dismissed. Janell Green Smith, a certified nurse-midwife who worked to address these disparities, couldn’t escape this deadly pattern.

And now, just when we need more providers like her — providers who understand the lived experience of the communities they serve — we’re watching the pipeline collapse.

Since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in medical school admissions, we’ve seen a year-over-year decline in the number of minority applicants accepted. Let me be clear about what this means: as America becomes more diverse, our medical workforce is becoming more homogenous. We’re moving backward while calling it progress.

The mathematics are cruel: 432 rural hospitals are at risk of closure. 27 rural labor and delivery units shut down in 2025 alone. A projected shortage of 86,000 physicians by 2036. And now, fewer pathways for the very students who are most likely to serve underserved communities.

This isn’t just a pipeline problem. It’s a systematic dismantling of equity.

Dr. King’s Unfinished Work

On this MLK Day, I keep returning to one of Dr. King’s lesser-known quotes: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

He said that in 1966. Sixty years later, his words remain devastatingly relevant.

Dr. King didn’t just dream of a world where children wouldn’t be judged by the color of their skin — he fought for a world where that color wouldn’t predict their life expectancy, their access to care, their likelihood of surviving childbirth.

We’ve failed him. We’ve failed Janell Green Smith. We’re failing the next generation. Let this failure compel us to support culturally competent healthcare, push for policy changes, and expand support for provider diversity and patient advocacy. Grief must become a catalyst for lasting solutions.

But here’s what Dr. King also taught us: despair is not an option. Action is the antidote to despair.

Building What We Need: Inclusive Health Match

I refuse to accept that we must simply watch this deterioration. So I built something.

It’s called Inclusive Health Match (IHM), and it’s my answer to a system that continues to fail us. Unlike existing provider directories, IHM is built specifically to match patients and providers based on shared cultural identity, lived experiences, and values — going beyond location and specialty to prioritize what truly impacts outcomes for underserved communities.

Here’s the premise: patients who share cultural identity with their providers have better health outcomes. This isn’t opinion — it’s documented across dozens of studies. Language concordance, racial concordance, and gender identity understanding — these aren’t luxuries. They’re healthcare necessities.

Want a Spanish-speaking female cardiologist in Park Slope? IHM will help you find her.

Need an LGBTQ+-affirming primary care physician who understands the unique health challenges of trans patients? IHM centers that.

Looking for a Black OB/GYN who won’t dismiss your pain, who understands the historical trauma of Black women in American healthcare, who shares the vision that Janell Green Smith had for empowering women through their birth experiences? IHM prioritizes providers of the global majority.

But IHM is more than a directory. It is the only platform centered on meaningful cultural matching and equity-driven features — every element is designed to close gaps others overlook. It’s a statement of values. It’s infrastructure for equity.

And it’s also a bridge to understanding. The app includes a Cultural Calendar — an inclusive resource that lets you learn about different faith traditions, cultural celebrations, and their health implications. Want to understand the fasting practices during Ramadan and how they affect diabetes management? Curious about the wellness connections of Lunar New Year or Diwali? The Cultural Calendar helps providers offer respectful, culturally competent care, and helps all of us learn how others worship, celebrate, and heal.

Because the more we know, the more we grow. And understanding each other’s cultural practices isn’t just about tolerance — it’s about providing better healthcare.

Training AI to See Us

We’re entering an age where artificial intelligence will increasingly shape healthcare decisions — from diagnosis to treatment recommendations to provider matching. And if we don’t act now, AI will replicate and amplify the same biases that kill Black mothers at three times the rate of white mothers.

That’s why IHM is designed to train AI systems to center cultural identity as a factor in elevating providers. We’re teaching machines what our medical system has refused to learn: that representation matters, that lived experience is expertise, that matching patients with providers who understand their reality isn’t “identity politics” — it’s evidence-based medicine.

When algorithms learn to value cultural concordance, when AI prioritizes providers who serve underserved communities, when machine learning understands that a Spanish-speaking diabetic patient does better with a Spanish-speaking endocrinologist — we’re not just building better technology. We’re encoding equity into the future of healthcare.

The MLK Day Challenge: Find Each Other

So here’s my call to action on this MLK Day:

To patients: Refuse care that doesn’t see you. Insist on providers who hear, believe, and understand you fully. Seek out IHM and demand cultural concordance — your well-being and your life demand it. Share your story. Organize. Hold systems accountable.

To healthcare providers: We need you on Inclusive Health Match. Log on. Create your profile. Tell us what makes you more than just an NPI number. What languages do you speak? Are you LGBTQ+-affirming? Do you understand the unique health challenges facing specific communities? Share what makes you the right provider for patients who need someone who truly sees them. Because finding the right fit between patient and provider means better outcomes for you, too. When patients feel seen and heard, they’re more engaged in their care, more likely to follow treatment plans, and more trusting of your clinical judgment. Cultural concordance reduces miscommunication, decreases no-show rates, and yes — it reduces provider burnout. When you can connect authentically with your patients, medicine feels less like a transaction and more like the calling that brought you here in the first place. This isn’t charity — it’s better medicine for everyone.

To medical students from underrepresented groups: Stay in the fight. The doors may be narrowing, but your presence is vital. Share your journey. Mentor others. Demand your seat at the table, and help keep Janell Green Smith’s vision alive. Do not step back — step forward.

To healthcare institutions: End practices that perpetuate inequity. Fund and retain rural hospitals. Stop excluding minority physicians without cause. Commit to actionable diversity initiatives and cultural competency training — make inclusion a core mission. Your decisions save lives or cost them. Choose equity now.

To tech builders and AI developers: The algorithms you build today will determine healthcare access for the next generation. Will they amplify existing inequities, or will they center equity? The choice is yours, but the clock is ticking.

To policymakers: Act urgently. Reverse Medicaid cuts, reject new barriers for international clinicians, and pass laws to increase the physician pipeline. Restore affirmative action in medical education. These are not just policy choices — they are matters of life and death. Your leadership is needed now.

In Memory, In Action

Dr. Janell Green Smith should be here. She should be watching her daughter, Eden, grow stronger in the NICU, should be delivering babies, training the next generation of midwives, and sharing her infectious energy and fierce advocacy with every woman who walks through her door.

Instead, we’re writing about her death.

The question is: what will we do with our grief? Channel it into action — support inclusive care, demand policy changes, and uplift those continuing this fight. Let grief mobilize us to create the change that honors Janell’s legacy.

Dr. King taught us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” What he didn’t say — what he didn’t need to say to those who marched with him — is that the arc doesn’t bend itself. We bend it. With our hands, our voices, our refusal to accept the unacceptable.

So today, on MLK Day, I’m bending the arc. I’m building IHM. I’m writing this piece. I’m refusing to let Janell Green Smith’s death be just another statistic.

And I’m asking you to join me.

Find each other. Patients, find providers who see you. Providers of color, find each other — we need networks of support because the system is designed to isolate us. Students, find mentors who look like you. Communities, find and support your safety-net hospitals before they close.

In the darkness of maternal mortality rates, physician shortages, and systematic exclusion, we must become each other’s light.

The Bottom Line

Dr. King said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Healthcare inequity isn’t a “minority issue” — it’s a national crisis that happens to kill minorities first.

When Black mothers die at three times the rate of white mothers, that’s not a Black problem. That’s an American failure.

When medical schools become less diverse as the population becomes more diverse, that’s not an admissions issue. That’s a systematic dismantling of public health infrastructure.

When providers like Janell Green Smith die from the very conditions they dedicated their lives to treating, that’s not irony. That’s a consequence.

We can do better. We must do better.

Download Inclusive Health Match from the Google Play Store or join the TestFlight beta for iOS at testflight.apple.com/join/HxYfdsHq. Share it with someone who’s been dismissed by their doctor, who’s tired of not being seen, who deserves healthcare that honors their whole identity.

And if you’re in a position to bend the arc — whether you’re a student, a practitioner, a policymaker, or a patient — do it. Today. Now.

Because the next Janell Green Smith is out there right now, and she deserves a system that will save her.

Download Inclusive Health Match:
iOS (TestFlight Beta): testflight.apple.com/join/HxYfdsHq
Android: Available now in the Google Play Store