Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine - May 8, 2025
Let's check in
Last night, a friend and I went to see Wine in the Wilderness (which I highly recommend, btw, but you’d better move quick; it ends April 19) and while I waited for her in the coffee shop that abuts the theatre, I noticed a patron reading a book growing nearer and nearer the top of my TBR pile.
“I’m so sorry to bother you,” I said, as I approached the man, “but that book is at the top of my reading pile, and I’m just curious, how are you finding it so far?”
“Oh, I’m not too far into it yet, but it’s gripping. I always like a book when it teaches me something, and better still, when it’s a great story.”
Bingo. Exactly my own criteria for how I select books for Book Therapy Project. After the show, I came home, read the first couple of chapters, and agreed wholeheartedly.
Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Dr. Uché Blackstock is now at the top of my reading pile, and the subject of our discussion for the May gathering.
Equal parts family memoir, indictment of the US health care system, and a call to action, “Legacy is Dr. Blackstock’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician—to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement” (Penguin).
Join us to discuss:
How does race dictate different experiences of the US health care system?
How do systemic inequities influence health and care outcomes?
How can we, as individuals, help dismantle racism in health care?
What is the importance of mentorship in someone’s life, either as mentor or mentee?
How are legacies made?
Details:
Book: Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Dr. Uché Blackstock
Review: NYT
Podcast: NPR’s Fresh Air: A Doctor Fights to Make Medicine More Inclusive
Video: PBS News Weekend segment
Date: Thursday, May 8
Time: 6pm food and mingling, 7:30-9pm discussion
Where: Available upon RSVP
Food: Will be provided, always vegetarian
Drink: BYOB