As a child, Dontal Johnson, 40, dreamed of becoming a doctor, but never saw himself represented in the profession.
“I had never seen a black doctor growing up, and one of the craziest things is I never saw a black doctor until I got to college,” Johnson said.
Johnson decided to apply to medical schools in Texas, but when a friend told him about a potential school in Nashville, Tennessee, full of black students, he was in disbelief.
“He started describing a place where there were people who looked like me, dentists, doctors, scientists. So I went home that night. It was still – I had dial-up Internet – so I had to wait for it to appear and then these pictures came from Meharry, and I applied that evening maybe around 1 or 2 in the morning.”
After graduating from Meharry Medical College – a historically black institution – he decided to stay in the community and is now a pediatrician and professor there.
“I think one of the things that really stands out is this African American patient population and how systemic racism, how the history, how the healthcare profession in general hasn’t always been there for this patient population,” Johnson said.
Black patients fare better overall health outcomes when treated by black doctors, according to recent studies.
To strengthen these ties, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced a $600 million gift to the four historically black colleges and universities medical schools – Meharry, Morehouse School of Medicine, Howard University College of Medicine and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Together, they trained about 50 percent of all black doctors in the United States, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Currently, African Americans make up about 14 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But they represent only 5.2% of the nation’s doctors, according to the AAMC.
“Having a health professional is important in the community, but also having a Black healthcare professional lifts all boats,” said Dr. Valerie Montgomery-Rice, president of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga. “First of all, it’s going to allow us to educate and train more black and brown doctors , and this will allow these students to have more choice as to where they wish to practice and to be in less debt. »
It’s something she’s seen before.
In 2020, Bloomberg gave $26 million to Morehouse School of Medicine to help students pay off debt. Resident physician Jamil Joyner received $100,000.
“He doesn’t just say, ‘We believe in black doctors,’ he says, ‘We believe in black institutions and how they will play a role in change healthcare for black individuals,” Joyner said.
For Dr Dontal Johnson, we need to invest more in black doctors.
“I’m a living witness to it, to the training of African American doctors, doctors who care for the underserved. So when you look at the data together and say that, hey, when we partner with doctors African-Americans and that we put into communities, we actually see less strokes, we see less hypertension in the community, we see less obesity,” Johnson said.
Healthier communities generate a healthier nation.
Jericka Duncan
