Uché Blackstock is an American emergency physician and former Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the New York University School of Medicine. She is the Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, which partners with healthcare organizations to equip them with the tools needed to provide equitable care to each and every patient. During the COVID-19 pandemic Blackstock used social media to share her experiences and concerns as a physician working on the front lines and on racial health disparities and inequities exposed by the pandemic. She is best known for her work amplifying the message on racial health inequities and her media appearances speaking on the COVID-19 pandemic. She has been featured on Meet the Press, PBS NewsHour, Slate and Forbes among others. Blackstock became a Yahoo! News Medical Contributor in June of 2020.
Early life and education
Blackstock is originally from Brooklyn. She grew up in Crown Heights alongside her fraternal twin sister, Oni Blackstock. Their mother, Dale Gloria Blackstock, studied medicine at Harvard University. She was the first member of her family to attend college. During her practice, she specialized in nephrology and served as president of an organization for Brooklyn's black women doctors. Blackstock's father, Earl, was an accountant. Blackstock and her sister spent much of their childhood with their mother at the hospital, or watching her work in community health programs in Brooklyn. They both graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1995 and attended undergrad and medical school at Harvard, following in their mother's footsteps. During Blackstock's sophomore year, her mother fell ill with leukemia and in July 1997, died. During her time at Harvard University, Blackstock also took an interest in journalism, writing for The Harvard Crimson. When Blackstock and her sister graduated from Harvard - undergrad in 1999 and medical school in 2005 - they became the first black mother-daughter legacy to do so. Following graduation, Blackstock completed her residency at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where she was named Chief Resident and specialized in emergency medicine. She later moved on to Mount Sinai Morningside to complete an emergency ultrasound fellowship in 2010.
Research and career
In 2010, Blackstock was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the New York UniversitySchool of Medicine, where she held a simultaneous position as an emergency physician. At the time, fewer than two percent of American physicians were black women. Blackstock has worked to bring attention to racism in healthcare. In March 2019 Blackstock established Advancing Health Equity, who help healthcare organisations to support a diverse workforce. She believes that a diverse workforce, and one where everyone feels valued and respected, is essential for good patient care. As part of the organisation she trains people in cognitive bias, structural racism, microaggressions and health disparities. She created an analytical tool to help her clients assess racial equity within their organisational practises. In January 2020 Blackstock published an op-ed that outlined why she had left academic medicine. Her reasons included a toxic work environment, sexism, racism and denial of promotion. She has called for academic medical centers to better appreciate and rectify the impact of racism in healthcare. Blackstock works at an emergency care centre in Brooklyn. The centre usually deals with minor conditions, but during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Blackstock noticed that patients were presenting with the symptoms of coronavirus disease. She used social media to describe the challenges that she had getting testing fo her patients, especially "when celebrities are getting tested with ease and quick turnaround times". She is concerned about how the coronavirus pandemic will affect black patients. Not only are black patients less likely to be tested but they are less likely to be listened to, and this will impact the outcomes of their coronavirus care. In an interview with Slate, Blackstock remarked, "When I heard about doctors in Italy having to ration ventilators and then the incredibly likely possibility that that is going to happen here, my first thought was so many Black people are going to die".
Personal life
Blackstock has two children. She is a popular science communicator, sharing her experiences as a black woman physician on Twitter. Her identical twin sister, Oni, is a physician in the South Bronx. Oni Blackstock conducts research into HIV in women of colour at Montefiore Medical Center.
