Filut A, Alvarez M, Carnes M. Discrimination Toward Physicians of Color: A Systematic Review. J Natl Med Assoc. 2020 Apr;112(2):117-140. doi: 10.1016/j.jnma.2020.02.008. Epub 2020 Mar 18. PMID: 32197899; PMCID: PMC7253328.

Pilling R, Salpadoru I. Diversity in the Medical Workforce is Better for Patients. BMJ. 2019 Dec 11;367:l6874. doi: 10.1136/bmj.l6874. PMID: 31826858.

Laurencin CT, Murray M. An American Crisis: the Lack of Black Men in Medicine. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2017 Jun;4(3):317-321. doi: 10.1007/s40615-017-0380-y. Epub 2017 May 22. PMID: 28534304; PMCID: PMC5909952.

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An African American emergency room physician reflects on how “the chaos of emergency medicine” helped her come to terms with a painful past and understand the true nature of healing. Though Harper grew up a member of the Washington, D.C. “black elite,” the beautiful homes she shared with her parents held a dark secret: domestic violence. Determined to “fix people” rather than hurt them the way her abusive father hurt her family, Harper became an ER doctor. Her path was difficult. After she accepted her first post-residency job, the man she had met at Harvard and later married walked away from their relationship. Braving a life on her own in a new city, night shifts in an urban hospital, and the life-and-death dramas of the ER ward, Harper began a period of intense soul-searching. Observations of her patients and the struggles they faced taught her abundant lessons in human brokenness—especially her own—and resilience. A newborn baby whose death she could not explain helped her learn to open her heart and truly feel. A white male patient who had committed sexual assault on a female doctor forced the author to push past old memories of her father’s abuse and feelings of rage to see a human being in pain. A young black man brought to the ER ward by white police officers who unsuccessfully tried forcing him to submit to a medical examination for drugs reminded Harper of her own struggles as a black woman in an overwhelmingly white profession. It also made her realize that “America bears…many layers of racial wounds, both chronic and acute,” and that part of her purpose was to continue her fight to promote social healing. Tackling such painful subjects as domestic abuse, trauma, and racism with grace and wisdom, this eloquent book probes the human condition as it chronicles a woman’s ever-evolving spiritual journey.

New York Times Bestseller

The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir | Michele Harper, MD | Penguin Random House | 2020 | 304 pages | ISBN: 978-0525537380 | WorldCat |  

Author

Michele Harper has worked as an emergency room physician for more than a decade at various institutions, including as chief resident at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and in the emergency department at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia. She is a graduate of Harvard University and the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. The Beauty in Breaking is her first book.

Official Website of Michele Harper, MD

Interviews

'There Are Constant Battles': Dr. Michele Harper Opens Up About Racism in the Emergency Room. People. July 7, 2020

Book

Today he is known as Dr. Q, an internationally renowned neurosurgeon and neuroscientist who leads cutting-edge research to cure brain cancer. But not too long ago, he was Freddy, a nineteen-year-old undocumented migrant worker toiling in the tomato fields of central California. In this gripping memoir, Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa tells his amazing life story--from his impoverished childhood in the tiny village of Palaco, Mexico, to his harrowing border crossing and his transformation from illegal immigrant to an American citizen and gifted student at the University of California at Berkeley and at Harvard Medical School. Packed with adventure and adversity - including a few terrifying brushes with death - Becoming Dr. Q is a testament to persistence, hard work, the power of hope and imagination, and the pursuit of excellence. It's also a story about the importance of family, mentors, and giving people a chance.

14th International Latino Book Award for Best Biography

Becoming Dr Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon | Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa | University of California Press | 2011 | 328 pages | ISBN: 978-0520274563 | WorldCat |  

Author

Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD, is a consultant and serves as chair of the Department of Neurologic Surgery at Mayo Clinic's campus in Florida, and he is recognized with the distinction of a named professorship, the William J. and Charles H. Mayo Professorship. In addition to his clinical activities, Dr. Quiñones-Hinojosa leads NIH-funded research to find a cure for brain cancer. His cutting-edge research focuses on brain tumors and cell migration, health care disparities and clinical outcomes for neurosurgical patients in which the operating room is used as an extension for his research scenario. He has authored numerous high-impact scientific journal articles, chapters, abstracts and books.

Professional Website of Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD

NNLM Reading Club Presents...

Watch the Recording 

Host Edgar Gil Rico of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health joined NNLM and our All of Us community partners for an afternoon with Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD to discuss his book, Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon. Dr. Q, as he is known, shared his journey from a child in a Mexican village to a migrant farmworker in California to a world-renown brain surgeon and researcher. Dr. Q also answered audience questions.

Book

When Damon Tweedy begins medical school, he envisions a bright future where his segregated, working-class background will become largely irrelevant. Instead, he finds that he has joined a new world where race is front and center. Black Man in a White Coat examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. As Tweedy transforms from student to practicing physician, he discovers how often race influences his encounters with patients. Through their stories, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of many health problems in the black community. These issues take on greater meaning when Tweedy is himself diagnosed with a chronic disease far more common among black people. In this powerful, moving, and deeply empathic book, Tweedy explores the challenges confronting black doctors, and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately seeking a way forward to better treatment and more compassionate care.

New York Times Bestseller | Library Journal Best Book Selection | Booklist Editor's Choice Book Selection

Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflection on Race and Medicine | Damon Tweedy MD | Picador | Reprint 2016 | 304 pages | ISBN: 978-1250105042 | WorldCat |  

Author

Damon Tweedy, MD, is a graduate of Duke University School of Medicine. He is an associate professor of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine and staff physician at the Durham Veteran Affairs Health System. He has published articles about race and medicine in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Raleigh News & Observer, as well as in various medical journals. He lives outside Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, with his family.

Official Website of Damon Tweedy MD

Interview

Book

In Montgomery, Alabama, 1973, fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies. But when her first week on the job takes her along a dusty country road to a worn-down one-room cabin, Civil is shocked to learn that her new patients, Erica and India, are children--just eleven and thirteen years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black, and for those handling the family's welfare benefits, that's reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica, and their family into her heart. Until one day she arrives at their door to learn the unthinkable has happened, and nothing will ever be the same for any of them. Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten. That must not be forgotten. Because history repeats what we don't remember. Inspired by true events and brimming with hope, Take My Hand is a stirring exploration of accountability and redemption.

Take My Hand | Dolen Perkins-Valdez | Penguin Random House | 2022 | 368 pages | ISBN: 978-0593337691 | WorldCat |  

Author

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench and Balm. She was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and she was awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her family.

Official Website of Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Interview