Uché Blackstock

Blackstock is from Brooklyn and grew up in Crown Heights.[1][2] She has a fraternal twin sister, Oni Blackstock.[3][2] Her mother, Dale Gloria, who is from Brooklyn, studied medicine at Harvard University.[4][3][5] She was the first member of her family to attend college.[6] Her mother specialised in nephrology and was the president of an organisation for Brooklyn's black women doctors.[3] Her father, Earl, was an accountant.[2] Blackstock and her sister, Oni, spent much of their childhood with their mother at hospital, or watching her work in community health programs in Brooklyn. They attended Stuyvesant High School.[2] She and Oni earned their undergraduate and medical degrees at Harvard Medical School.[3] When she was a sophomore her mother fell ill with leukaemia, and died at the age of 47.[5][1] She took time out after her undergraduate degree, where she mourned for her mother and taught science at a high school in Chicago. When she returned to Boston, Blackstock joined a non-profit that looks to achieve healthcare for all. During her time at Harvard University, Blackstock wrote for The Harvard Crimson.[7] When Blackstock and her sister graduated Harvard, they became the first black mother-daughter legacy to do so.[5] She was a resident physician at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where she specialised in emergency medicine. She moved to Mount Sinai Morningside where she trained in ultrasound.[8]

In 2010, Blackstock was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the New York University School of Medicine, where she held a simultaneous position as an emergency physician.[9] At the time, fewer than two percent of American physicians were black women.[5] Blackstock has worked to bring attention to racism in healthcare.[10][11][12][13] In March 2019 Blackstock established Advancing Health Equity, who help healthcare organisations to support a diverse workforce.[14][15][16] She believes that a diverse workforce, and one where everyone feels valued and respected, is essential for good patient care.[5] As part of the organisation she trains people in cognitive bias, structural racism, microaggressions and health disparities.[5][1] She created an analytical tool to help her clients assess racial equity within their organisational practises.[17] In January 2020 Blackstock published an op-ed that outlined why she had left academic medicine.[18] Her reasons included a toxic work environment, sexism, racism and denial of promotion.[18] She has called for academic medical centers to better appreciate and rectify the impact of racism in healthcare.[18][14]

Blackstock works at an emergency care centre in Brooklyn. The centre usually deals with minor conditions, but during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Blackstock noticed that patients were presenting with the symptoms of coronavirus disease.[19] She used social media to describe the challenges that she had getting testing fo her patients, especially "when celebrities are getting tested with ease and quick turnaround times".[20] She is concerned about how the coronavirus pandemic will affect black patients.[21] Not only are black patients less likely to be tested but they are less likely to be listened to, and this will impact the outcomes of their coronavirus care.[21] In an interview with Slate, Blackstock remarked, "When I heard about doctors in Italy having to ration ventilators and then the incredibly likely possibility that that is going to happen here, my first thought was so many Black people are going to die".[21]

Blackstock has two children.[5] She is a popular science communicator, sharing her experiences as a black woman physician on Twitter. Her identical twin sister, Oni, is a physician in the South Bronx. Oni Blackstock conducts research into HIV in women of colour at Montefiore Medical Center.[3]