Honoring the Stories of Black Women Physicians: A Collective Conversation Project
Jessica Restaino with Damali Campbell Oparaji
(interview transcript below)
Part of what draws me to obstetrics and gynecology is having a sense of what that
feels like to be not seen or to be not heard. I can identify with it but at the same
time I’m not going to just let the cycle continue. To the best I can, in my practice,
I open up that space to allow this person that I’m seeing who did not feel heard, to
give them that chance so that they can do that with me. And that may not on a
population level move the needle but—it’s enough for me if I just—if I help one
person—that’s enough for me. I don’t want to say it’s not important to have that population level implementation…but after twenty years there’s skepticism…I can’t
be sure the system is going to work…but I’m also going to continue to do the work that
I know how to do, giving one woman a voice.
–Damali Campbell Oparaji, MD (interview, 2/19/21)
Damali Campbell Oparaji and I embarked on a two-year, weekly conversation project at the start of the pandemic. At the time, Damali and I were both serving as board trustees for our regional Planned Parenthood affiliate and so had a history of collaboration around issues of reproductive justice. During the Spring 2020 semester I was teaching an undergraduate class on medical rhetorics and invited Damali, an obstetrician/gynecologist, to join us as a guest speaker. During that class, Damali talked about some of the ethics and deep challenges of her work in an under-resourced hospital in one of our state’s urban centers. After class the two of us sat in a nearby cafeteria and Damali talked about her longstanding wish to write about her experiences of medical practice and asked me to be a resource to her in such work. We had not at that point done more than exchange a kind of mutual willingness to continue the conversation. It would be mere weeks before the pandemic hit. My class moved into an exclusively online environment and Damali’s day-to-day work included navigating the hospital in head-to-toe PPE. As the pandemic worsened, Damali would periodically reach out and say I really need to talk to you about that writing project.
Our collaboration has since taken multiple forms: a workshop, conference presentations, and a drafted manuscript built around “ten stories of practice” selected from Damali’s extensive record of clinical experience, meant to foster conversation and reflection among medical students and early career clinicians. A hallmark of our work for two years was our weekly zoom conversation, recorded typically in the early morning as Damali drove to the hospital, her phone balanced on her dashboard. While our medium was initially a condition of the pandemic, it also became an easy way to stay connected amid our busy schedules. Along the way we’ve taken plenty of zoom breaks to meet in person to sort and think together about the many stories we’ve accumulated in our extended dialogue. We entered into this collaboration to share Damali’s experiences as a source of education and inspiration for others; ultimately, we recorded many hours of conversation, all stories from Damali’s medical practice, and with a shared understanding of the continued need for doctors’ stories as a necessary view from inside the institution of medicine. Alongside the need for these stories to be told, Damali has discovered that the process of sharing one’s experiences can also be quite therapeutic for the storyteller.
One of the outgrowths of our efforts has included a commitment to trying to replicate it with more voices. As a Black woman practicing medicine, Damali is among a critical minority whose experiences are often unmatched by professional peers. She endures systemic racism inside and outside of the hospital while also enacting clinical expertise, teaching medical students, and shouldering responsibility for patient safety. Given the dearth of representation of Black women physicians in many venues, including in the study of rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM), our goal in centering the stories of Black women physicians in this journal is to foster collaborations between scholar-activists and physicians that privilege the labor and expertise of Black women physicians. What we hope for is that such collaborations will not only highlight the existing and often radical work Black women physicians have long-performed in some of the most urgent clinical spaces, but also challenge the how/what/why of the subsequent, emergent scholarship itself. Accordingly, we are working to connect interested RHM scholars with physicians in Damali’s professional network who are interested in sharing a story from their medical practice. A growing archive of physician stories will be featured on the journal’s digital platform, offering a shift in genre and, we hope, for deeper work.
As a way of beginning, Damali and I have recorded a short conversation in which she recounts a racist encounter with medical residents who were under her mentorship. We organized this conversation around a brief, focused series of questions that greatly simplify my role as interlocutor and bring into highly visible relief the story Damali decides to tell. We recommend a similar format for other interviewers who would like to contribute to this archive. A transcript of our conversation is included with our video recording. As has always been the case in our many conversations, Damali’s stories represent composites—the accumulation of many similar sets of experiences over her twenty years of practice—rather than any singular individual, patient or colleague. Instead, what we see is a snapshot of lived clinical experience which deserves centering and study, and which stands to disrupt some of the roots of our work in RHM. Scholars interested in working to collect physicians’ stories for this project should write to rhm.journal.editors@gmail.com.
References
Blackstock, Uché. (2020, January 16).Why Black doctors like me are leaving faculty positions in academic medical centers. STAT. https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/16/black-doctors-leaving-faculty-positions-academic-medical-centers/
Crear-Perry, Joia. (2018, April 11). Race isn’t a risk factor in Black naternal health. Racism is. Rewire News Group. https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2018/04/11/maternal-health-replace-race-with-racism/
Dudley, Jessica, McLaughlin, Sarah, & Lee, Thomas H. (2022, January 19). Why so many women physicians are quitting. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/01/why-so-many-women-physicians-are-quitting
Howard, Jacqueline (2023, February 21). Only 5.7% of US doctors are Black, and experts warn the shortage harms public health. CNN Health. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/health/black-doctors-shortage-us/index.html
Restaino, Jessica. (2021, February 19). Jessica Restaino’s interview with Dr. Damali Campbell Oparaji. Rhetoric of Health & Medicine. www.medicalrhetoric.com
Interview Transcript
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Jessica Restaino: All right, so welcome it’s good to be here. I’m. Just for staying out from Montre State University with Dr. Donnelly, Campbell Oparge, and we are here to do a short conversation about doctors language and storytelling, so first
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Jessica Restaino: can I invite you to please introduce yourself?
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Sure, Sure, thanks, Jessica. So My name is Domini Campbell, of Perigee. I am an obstetrician gynecologist for a little over 2 decades
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and I am currently an associate professor at Records, New Jersey Medical School.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I am board certified in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as addiction medicine.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and I have interest in
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): a few things, but primarily really working with underserved populations
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in
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): reducing health disparities. And I do that in my field
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): by
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): working on a few projects.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): cancer screening projects. But really some of the projects that are really near and dear to my heart have to do with
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): health, literacy.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and improving access to care.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Group prenatal care as well as improving breastfeeding rates in underserved communities.
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Jessica Restaino: Thank you. Amazing. Thank you so much.
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Jessica Restaino: So there is emerging evidence that there is value in storytelling for medical practitioners.
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Jessica Restaino: In what ways were stories incorporated into your education?
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): In my early education. Straight telling was a big part of
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): something that I enjoyed
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in my elementary education. We had storytelling contest, and that was something that I really enjoyed. But
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as I
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): advanced in my education.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and particularly as I advanced in the field of medicine and science.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I really did not find storytelling to be a big part
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): of what
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): was emphasized.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): but because of that background, and telling a story. I always found it particularly
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): useful, particularly telling
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and help me to learn.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And that’s how you know I came to incorporate it
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in my own practice.
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Jessica Restaino: So
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Jessica Restaino: that’s really helpful to think about.
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Jessica Restaino: So what’s one story that comes to mind in your medical practice that you feel has taught you among the most about either the kind of physician that you want to be, or the kind of a physician maybe you don’t want to be.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Yeah.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I mean
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): it could be here forever, because
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I have a 1 million stories. But
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I think one of the stories
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): that I wanted that I can talk about.
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Okay.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): that really
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): it brings out on so many levels.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): How I think
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): people who might be well intentioned
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can still
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exhibit bias
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): can still be victims
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): of
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): the structural racism that exist in the health care system.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and can perpetuate that structural racism
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in the health care system.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): even when they’re well intentioned.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I think for me. It was an important story, because.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): as an attending physician.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I felt powerless.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and I was supposed to be the person in power.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I think
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): The last part of it is that it reminded me that in telling this story
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): it’s exactly why we need to tell stories
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): if we want to change the system.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): So this story happened as I was in attending, and
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): typically when
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): we we call it turnover. When one team
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): that has worked during the day, it’s turning over to the team
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): that is coming on to work at night.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And so
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): there is a large group of people.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and that group is
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): the attending physician, who is the person who’s in charge
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): because I work in the Academic Teaching Center. They are our residents who have finished medical school. They’ve graduated. They are physicians.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): but
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): they’re in training for the specialty
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in this case for obt my end.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And then there are also medical students
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): who
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): our
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in medical school
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): generally in the third year, but some are in the fourth year, and they are rotating through this particular specialty.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Sometimes there is also the nurses who
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): are also at this what we term as turnover or rounds.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and the purpose of the turnover is so that everybody is kind of on the same page about the patients
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): that we’re caring for.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And so on this particular evening I was coming in as the attending to work overnight, and so the daytime team was turning over to the nighttime team.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): typically we stand in front of the board, which is like a board that lists
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): the patients who are on the labor floor.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And so the senior resident.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): who was in the day, was going through the board
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and going through each one of the patients.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): she talked about, you know, labor room 2,
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and the patients age and the patients medical problems, and why the patient was admitted.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And
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then she went on to
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): some of the other rooms.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and there were several patients, but in the end there were 2 patients that
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): had some similarities.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and the similarities had to do with
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): a similar diagnosis.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): at the end of the round the patient the
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): chief residents said, yeah, we have twins.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): You know. These 2 patients are twins. They
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): have the same hair style.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and you know they have the same medical problem
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): the whole.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): we it’s a whole team of people. So
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know we’re all kind of in this semicircle in front of the board.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): probably about 1015 people, and that whole team of people erupts into laughter
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): behind this idea that these 2 patients are twins.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): So in that moment I really
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): like didn’t get it.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And I was like, what do you mean? They’re twins like, are they related?
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I guess She then kind of caught herself and said, You know
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): No, I was just, you know, kind of
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): saying that they are similar.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): but that was really drawing for me, because I was like kind of shocked
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): that we had become so numb
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): to
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): each of these patients, individual
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): problems and issues.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): We
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): They were no longer an individual person
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): with their
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I individual identities.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): but we were just grouping them.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and you know. So this is exactly how
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): implicit bias right? We’re grouping things
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Yeah. So
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): at at those rounds, you know, as the Resident was going through the patients.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): essentially, you know, giving.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): turning over
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): the patients that she was caring for
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in the night time in the daytime to those of us who are going to take over in the night.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): She was going through the clinical information.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and so at the end of her going through the patients.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know, she kind of said. You know we have a set of twins.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and you know
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): the patient in Labor Room 2 and a patient and labor room. 7 or twins.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know. They both have chron rows, and you know they both have a HIV.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): both in both cases they don’t want people to know about their illness, and I
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): was kind of taken aback by that statement. And you know, right after she said it, the you know entire team, and there’s, you know, like 1015 people with the residents
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and the students.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and it’s a diverse group, but predominantly.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know, Caucasian.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): but it’s a diverse group of students
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and residents there.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know, just erupt into laughter, and I was really confused because I
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): knew that the likelihood that these women were actually like related and twins. So I was trying to understand, like.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): she was really joking about this, and I wasn’t getting the joke, you know.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And so you know
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I kind of
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): didn’t. I don’t think I push back as much. I said. You know I I think I said something like you know.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Are they related in any way? And you know.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): knowing
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): really that is
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): the likelihood that they could be related is is very small, but you know an issue just like you know, kind of like.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know. No, but I didn’t
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): lean in any more into
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): this quote on full joke.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): But as it sat with me longer.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know, and I
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): sat there for the rest of the night and reviewed the charts of these 2 women.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): You know. I recognize that
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): they were not twins. They were not similar. They were 2 women from 2 to immigrant women from 2 totally different countries. One was from a West African country.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and one was a Forum, a Caribbean country.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): One woman was
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): the reason she
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): didn’t want her partner to know. It was actually documented because she had been a victim of sexual assault.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and
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in her war torn country.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): which is how she believes that she
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): acquired HIV.
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She came to the United States, and she
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): developed a relationship with someone.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and when they found out about her status.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): they actually
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): through her out.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): which is why she
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): was nervous about her current partner
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finding out about her status.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And so, you know, the other woman’s situation again completely different. And so
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): really, you know.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): going through the chart, understanding
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): these women’s situations.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know, on this surface
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): maybe there’s some situation seems similar, so similar
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): that
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): we could
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in some sick and cool way, jokingly
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): call them twins.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): But
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): if we really took the time to really lean in and get to know more about them, we understand
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): that these are individual human beings.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and they have circumstances surrounding
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): their struggles, their illnesses, their social determinants.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): made them very individual.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And so you know.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): it
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): certainly
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): brought to mind to me how
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implicit black eyes plays a role in medicine, and how we can
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): get so caught up in trying to get this work done.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): we do this grouping, and we just put it, people become a number. They become a room number. They become a disease, and we lose sight of their individuality.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I think that’s problematic, and it speaks to
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): why patients
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): don’t feel like we’re listening to them.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Why, we are having some of the poor outcomes in medicine.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in maternal mortality and maternal morbidity that we’re seeing.
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and
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in terms of.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And and so you know it definitely, you know, reinforce my
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): desire to continue to be the type of person that I am to really
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Jessica Restaino: get to know my patience on a on a deeper level
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Jessica Restaino: for sure. Yeah, thank you so much for that powerful story. So much for us to think about.
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Jessica Restaino: And so I guess the last question that I have the follow up question here makes, I I think, good sense, which is what’s one change you’d like to see in the education of the next
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Jessica Restaino: generation in your field.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Yeah.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I really.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): based on that story. You know. One of the things that was not only disturbing to me was
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): not only the fact that this young
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): clinician, very early on in her career
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Jessica Restaino: was so jaded
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): but that
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): this group
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): felt
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): okay to erupt into laughter.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Right? That’s a culture
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Jessica Restaino: right?
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): It wasn’t one person.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): It wasn’t 2 people. It wasn’t a couple of people snickering to themselves. This was a group laughter.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and so
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know, it spoke to me about the work that we have to do
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in training our medical students.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and you know I get it. This is hard work. We working hard.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): We need ways to
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): d stress.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): but I don’t think they can be at the cost of
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): devaluing our patience.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): because if it wasn’t for these patients
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): giving us the privilege
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): to be involved in their care, how would we get an education?
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Jessica Restaino: That’s a privilege, right?
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And so how dare we? How how do we have the audacity
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): to take
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): that privilege for granted?
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): And so
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know one that one of the change I would like to see is
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): in our training to
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): for us to lean in more to that culture, human humility that we need to. It’s not just a one course.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): It has to be embedded
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): throughout the training, and that includes in the clinical years. And my one regret is that I didn’t
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): stop right there
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): and
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): do something
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): to reprimand that behavior
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): at that moment in time
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): I I was, you know I don’t know if I was in shock. I don’t know.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): you know, but I I do regret.
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Jessica Restaino: I regret that
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Jessica Restaino: Well, thank you so much for sharing the story, your experience, and also you know your hopes for training going forward really appreciate it.
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Jessica Restaino: And I know that what’s here will be really meaningful and useful for continued conversation and work.
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Jessica Restaino: Thank you so much for the time today.
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Damali Campbell (she/ Her): Thank you.
