Age Group:
AdultsProgram Description
Event Details
Dr. Uché Blackstock will discuss her memoir Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine, the story of her career and an account of the deep inequities that still exist in American healthcare.
In a medical system where only 2% of physicians are Black women, Black Americans have far worse health outcomes than any other group in the country. Legacy is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare, exposing a flawed system of practices and policies that jeopardize the well-being of entire communities. Following Dr. Blackstock’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician, this memoir not only explores the legacy of her mother and other pioneering Black physicians but also the long shadow of inequality in the United States healthcare system.
Registration required.
Book sale and signing hosted by Elm Street Books will follow.
As children during the 1980s, Uché Blackstock and her twin sister Oni watched their mother lead an organization of Black women physicians: fiercely intelligent women in white coats who cured ills and saved lives. Destined to follow in her footsteps, Uché and her sister went on to become the first Black mother-daughter legacies from Harvard Medical School. But as her career continued as an ER physician and a professor in academic medicine, Dr. Blackstock became profoundly aware of what she hadn’t seen as a child: the dangerous systemic barriers that Black patients and physicians face.
Dr. Blackstock is a physician and thought leader on bias and racism in healthcare. She appears on air regularly as an MSNBC medical contributor and is the founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, as well as a former associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the former faculty director for recruitment, retention, and inclusion in the Office of Diversity Affairs at NYU School of Medicine. Dr. Blackstock received both her undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University, making her and her twin sister, Oni, the first Black mother-daughter legacies from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Blackstock currently lives in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York, with her two school-age children.
Presented in partnership with The Links, Incorporated, Fairfield County Chapter.