Finding fairhealth

Finding Fairhealth through making Black Lives Matter.

In this episode we talk to Dr Julie Duodu and Dr Lucy Carter. I can’t stress enough how incredible these two ladies are and what a pleasure it was to be (a small) part of their conversation. Julie is a GP in Leeds working at York Street practice, a large inner city practice in Leeds serving the homeless population. Lucy is a GP in the culturally diverse borough of Hackney in London.

As much as I try to make some of these episodes short and a quick listen, I can't do that for them all! This is a longer episode than usual, but I think you’ll understand why, as the conversation just flowed, all the time covering important and fascinating ground. I hope you enjoy hearing the experiences of these amazing women.

We kick off with Lucy and Julie filling us in with how they are both doing in this challenging time (3mins). We discuss the opportunity the events of recent months have given to talk more about race (6mins). We cover the challenges with talking about race (6mins) and becoming more comfortable with being uncomfortable (8mins). Julie and Lucy share a mutual feeling of being proud of their heritage but feeling a pressure to fit in (12m20s). We discuss how society’s attitudes have impacted on the journey to where they both are now as GPs (18m40s) and how hard they have had to work to get to where they are now (22mins).

Lucy and Julie share their experiences of attitudes to race in the workplace (23mins 20s). They share stories and experiences over the years of how race has impacted on their relationship with their patients (24mins). We discuss being labelled as ‘the black doctor’ (27mins) and having to negotiate racism in their everyday work including what happens when patients refuse to see a health professional based on the colour of their skin (29m30s). We go on to discuss the importance of good leadership in having a unified stance on anti-racism (34m 40s) and supporting health care professionals in situations where they have been treated badly. We also talk about the importance of representation and diversity in leadership and how inspiring and impactful this can be early in a career and beyond (37mins)

I ask Lucy and Julie how race impacts on health inequalities amongst their patient population (39mins). We discuss COVID-19 and how race and ethnicity impacts the patients in their communities, including childhood obesity(40mins), access to health care (43mins) and mental health problems. We talk about medical education and teaching being orientated around the white normal and how looking into the future this needs to change (41mins).

We discuss Lucy and Julie’s views on some of the solutions to dealing with race and health inequalities for our patients (46m 35s) including:

• Recognising that health inequalities exist and that race plays a huge part in this; 
• Opening up spaces in the workplace to explore biases;
• Decolonising medical curriculums, defaulting from the white standard;
• Increasing the diversity of race and ethnicity in leadership roles;
• Keeping the conversation about race going into the future (53m 10s);

As always we finish with books, further resources and one magic genie wish from both Lucy and Julie (60m).

Lucy’s resources

• Brit-ish: Race Identity and belonging by Afua Hirsch
• Robin DiAngela White Fragility: Why is is so hard for white people to talk about racism

Julie’s recourses

• Natives by Akala 
• Superior by Angela Saini 
• Colour brave rather than colour blind TEDTalk by Mellody Hobson  

Further resources

• Message from Simon Stevens on Black Lives Matter and health inequalities
• Mind the Gap Handbook of clinical signs on black and brown skin
• Allyship

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