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Dear Dr. Washington,

Growing up on the Southside of Chicago, while I knew at an early age I wanted to become a physician, I did not see one that looked like ME. I had this sweet older male Black physician as my pediatrician who passed out lollipops and thought this precocious little Black girl was much too serious for such a young age.

No matter the alternatives placed before me, becoming a physician never changed in my mind, even as I entered college as a pre-medical student. This was the time, that I finally saw someone that looked like me doing what I wanted to do. It was Miranda Bailey on this new show called Grey’s Anatomy. I was in love and when I was not studying, I would watch this show. I even made my mom and little brother watch it with me. That show motivated me through the tears of organic chemistry and the frustrations of physics. I would succeed just like Miranda “Mandy” Bailey M.D. and become a force to be reckoned with in medicine.

Fast forward to a certain Diversity mentorship event, where I eagerly “placed” myself right in front of you, all too aware of the “General Surgery” under your name. We talked, and you shared your background and I shared my interests. What stood out was your slight Memphis drawl, so warm and comforting, it reminded me of my family and I thought “I have to keep in contact with her.”  Then you informed me you were leaving soon, so I thought “well dang, guess the timing wasn’t right”.  I moved on, (begrudgingly) so that my classmates would also get a chance to chat with you.

The next time I saw you was at the Surgery Interest Group meeting, where you shared exquisite pearls about your journey through medical school and residency. I hung back after the meeting and got your contact info, trying my best to build a natural rapport. We didn’t talk again until you were TEACHING our GI unit, and I could not hide from your questions on Zoom, even with my camera off! You demanded excellence from me for this unit and I refused to disappoint! I hadn’t been pushed like this since my summer school days with my grandma and that’s when I knew, from the obvious care and mentorship that you naturally poured into me, I’d found my real life “Dr. Bailey.”

There is no greater feeling than seeing someone that looks like you where you want to be. The confidence and excellence you exude is what I hope to one day attain. You live and give yourself so genuinely, reaching back for those coming behind you with love, support and encouragement. I continue to watch and learn from the impeccable, tenacious example you set as a Black woman in surgery, drawing inspiration on my tough days as a medical student. Until the fall of my first year of medical school, I had only a fictional character to look to as who I wanted to become as a physician. Then, I met Dr. Kimberly Washington, and having a mentor I can touch and give flowers to is so, so, soooo much better.

Thank you for all that you do, this precocious little Black girl from the Southside of Chicago, thinks the world of you!

Sincerely,

Charna Kinard

Dear Dr. McBride,

I want to start by saying thank you, not just any old thank you, but the deepest and sincerest thank you for all that you have done for me on this journey thus far. Because we are talking about the journey, let’s take a trip down memory lane.

I just left work at the TRiO office and had been told by Mr. Druitt to join my classmates in the first-floor meeting room. My first thoughts were: It has been a long day and I have some secondaries to wrap up but what could it hurt. Going back and forth in my head, I decided to walk to the presentation.

I was greeted by the pleasantries of two women, one had been setting up the PowerPoint and the other…the food (students love food). Nineteen African-American pre-med students gathered around the conference table listening to the words of these women. Their description of their institution seemed unreal; it was as if it was too good to be true. In my head I thought, how could you possibly teach Empathy, and set that as an expectation for a new generation of hopeful physicians?

They laid it out, and by the end of the presentation, I didn’t know where Fort Worth was, but I knew I had to be there with them.

I called my mom to tell her the good news of how I thought the perfect school had finally been created just for me. My mom is a strong believer in “when you know, you just know,”and I knew for the first time I felt like all of the boxes were checked, even boxes I didn’t know I needed. I patiently waited for the application portal to open, checking the website on a weekly basis, doing my research about the DFW area, and reaching out to the women who ensured that they could in fact change my life. What I truly appreciated, was that they wanted to see this young, black woman full of dreams and potential get into medical school, period.  Even if it wasn’t at their respective institution.

Fast forward to my White Coat Ceremony, when my mom wanted to meet the person who I had raved about for months, the woman who promised to support, encourage, and uplift me as I started this journey away from home. Mom embraced her and as she walked away, my mom smiled and said, “I know you will be fine here.”

And since then, you have kept your word Dr. McBride.

With every victory and with every failure, you have walked with me. You have inspired me to keep pushing forward when I felt I had nothing left to give. And what I am truly thankful for is your ability to see me. When my strengths been shrouded by doubt, you see the glitter. When I have accepted defeat, you have brushed me off and sent me back into the ring. You and Jerome have created a safe haven where I am free to laugh, and cry, and question, and discern, and exist in my purest and effortless form. For that and everything listed in this letter, I am truly grateful.

Thank you for being a tremendous support system and educator. I am truly blessed to have you in my life and owe a great deal of my success to you.

With Sincerest Gratitude,

Shanice Cox

Dear Dr. Jamal,

Often I am asked who my favorite professor is in medical school and my knee-jerk response is to say “Oh, that’s easy – it’s Dr. Jamal!”

Why this is the case stems from early on in my first year. You might not remember, but I had a less-than-stellar performance on the first Clinical Skills pre-exam and so I had to meet with you to discuss how best to move forward. I was terrified prior to the meeting. I was fully expecting to get threatened with expulsion if I continued to underperform, or perhaps even get ridiculed during the meeting. So, I set my jaw and walked into the room ready for the onslaught.

But the onslaught never came.

You see, in just that brief half hour, you made it very clear that even though I didn’t do so well, you still believed in me. Not only that, you made it clear that these exams and classes are not designed to trick or fail me, but are instead learning tools to help me become the best physician I can be. So, instead of internalizing this early failure, I was instead inspired to dig deeper and refine my physical exam and history gathering skills.

And then later that year, when it came time for the actual clinical skills exam, you were there to give me the pep talk of the century. I still remember how refreshing it was to joke and laugh off the nerves with you just minutes prior to taking that exam. As a result, I was able to walk into the exam room relaxed, focused and ready.

Unlike many professors I have had before, your mentorship didn’t end after your course’s final exam. You still took the time to reach out to me and my classmates by crafting and presenting high yield PowerPoints on a whole slew of topics ranging from cardiac arrest to infections in the immunocompromised. These crash courses have helped me shine in many of the clinics and hospitals already and will undoubtedly help me moving forward in my career. What blows me away is that you have done all of this despite being insanely busy with teaching medical school courses and saving lives in the Emergency Department.

Dr. Jamal, you have been a large part in making my medical school experience here an incredible one. I am truly grateful for everything you have done and want you to know that your hard work and dedication never go unnoticed. Thank you for being you.

Sincerely,

Mei Mei 

FORT WORTH – In real life, superheroes can come from all walks of life. For many, the first example of a superhero may be a parent.

“Children understand that their parents are at work or other things,” said Amy Faith Ho, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor at TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine. “But in medicine I don’t think kids get to see or internalize what mommy  is doing at work.”

Dr. Ho, who is also an emergency medicine physician for JPS Health Network, works on the frontlines of health care every day. Many would say that alone qualifies her for superhero status.

Now, she’s penned a children’s book titled, “Is Mommy A Doctor or Superhero?” aimed at planting the seed in young children to strive for a rewarding career and a family.

“I had been mulling over doing this for years,” Dr. Ho said. “When COVID happened, I just said let me get this message out there.”

The Austin native is also a nationally-published writer and speaker.

Dr. Ho wrote her first nationally published piece on humanism in medical training for the nationally acclaimed medical blog, KevinMD. In 2014, her final year of medical school, she published a policy-focused piece in Forbes on job market economics within medical training.

She has also been featured and published in NPR, The Today Show, Chicago Tribune and others. She has given presentations with TEDx, American Medical Association, American Academy of Emergency Medicine and multiple other projects.

Since medical school, young females in medicine are asked: “How are you going to juggle it all?” Dr. Ho said. “That’s a message you get in medicine and in all careers as females. But over time, meeting people who have done it, it’s an inspirational role to have.”

Her 28-page picture book, released in October 2020, uses illustrations to convey the stories of the unique set of characters who inspire children, ages 3 to 5, to believe that one day they will grow up and become superheroes in their own way.

Dr. Ho uses fun and colorful references of life in health care that gives adults an opportunity to share their love of medicine with children.

“Something, I wanted to show was that women do it all,” Dr. Ho said. “They also take the different parts of their lives and turn those skills into other aspects. The mothering nature really applies well to patient care.”

The book is written from the perspective of a young child called “Me” who has a big imagination. Me uses her imagination to bring her toys Cosmos and Feathers to life. Cosmos helps her dream about other galaxies, while Feathers represents her feelings and feels what she feels. But the true bond that is cultivated throughout the book is the connection between Me and her Mommy, who is a doctor.

“I wanted children to see that Mommy is doing really incredible things. She’s really saving lives,” Dr. Ho said. “We also wanted readers to see that moms can have good days and moms can have bad days. But no matter what, the child is what brings mom happiness.”

The book has anecdotal stories of Mommy battling germs at work with medicine and saving lives on and off the clock. But the book also reminds children of their role in supporting their parents. In the book, Me does that for her Mommy by recognizing one of her own superpowers by giving her mom hugs when she gets home from work.

It’s about empowering children to be their own superhero to someone, Dr. Ho said: “It was important for me to say that if they don’t want to be physicians, they don’t have to be physicians. It’s more about empowering them to know they can be something incredible.”

FORT WORTH – TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine faculty member Amy Faith Ho, M.D., assistant professor; TCU School of Interdisciplinary Studies Professor Scott Kurashige, Ph.D., and Myong Chong, advisory board member Tarrant County Asian Chamber of Commerce discussed how to support Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders.

During the discussion the panelists gave insight on the history of racism against the AAPI community in America and what steps need to be taken to address hate crimes against Asian-Americans as a Public Health issue.

You can watch the full discussion below.

Here is a list of resources from our panel of experts:

NPR: “Model Minority” myth 

Vincent Chin

Crystal City Texas Internment Camp: https://www.thc.texas.gov/crystalcity

Tarrant County Asian American Chamber of Commerce: https://www.tcaacc.com/

CMS.gov (Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services:

https://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Outreach/Partnerships/AAPI

NAAP – Dallas/Fort Worth:

https://dfw.naaap.org/cpages/home

Dallas – Fort Worth Asian Council American Citizen Council

http://www.dfwaacc.org/dfwaacc/

Asian Chamber of Texas

https://asianchambertx.com/aboutUs

AsiaSociety.Org

https://asiasociety.org/education/asian-americans-then-and-now

Department of Health & Human Services Asian-Americans

https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=3&lvlid=63

Asian Americans United:

https://aaunited.org

North Texas Community Resources:

https://www.tarrantcounty.com/en/commissioner-2/partners-in-southeast-tarrant-county/community-resources.html

Anti-Racism Resources/ Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month – Research Guides at Tarrant County College:

https://libguides.tccd.edu/APAH2021/AntiRacism

FORT WORTH – TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine faculty members Jennifer Allie, Ph.D., senior associate dean of faculty affairs; Debra Atkisson, M.D., associate professor and physician development coach; and Curby Alexander, Ph.D., associate professor of professional practice at TCU’s College of Education joined us for a discussion about how educators can fight COVID-19 fatigue.

Our experts discussed a new solution being implemented in at the school of medicine and how educators can re-connect with their “purpose” as role models for students and find sparks of joy.

You can watch the full discussion below.

Here is a list of resources educators can use to improve their health and wellness

• Ten Percent Happier – features podcasts, blog posts, meditations all free to help: https://www.tenpercent.com/covid

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Webpage for Coping with Stress: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html

• American Psychiatric Association webpage on warning signs of mental illness: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/warning-signs-of-mental-illness

• American Psychiatric Association webpage with many resources on coping: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/coping-after-disaster-trauma

• Helping Healthy Children Manage Stress: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/emotional-wellness/Pages/Helping-Children-Handle-Stress.aspx

• Mindfulness Coach from the VA for everyone – free app: https://mobile.va.gov/app/mindfulness-coach

• Calm – app for anxiety: https://www.calm.com/

• Headspace app: https://www.headspace.com/

• AAMC state of faculty burnout: State of Faculty Burnout – AAMC Analysis in Brief, 2019: https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/analysis-brief/report/burnout-among-us-medical-school-faculty

• Thomas Kannampallil conducted three surveys of physician trainees in mid-2020 to determine whether burnout was exacerbated by their exposure to people who had been hospitalized with COVID-19: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237301

• Mental Health Action Day information: https://www.mentalhealthactionday.org/?fbclid=IwAR0nvxSIC4nHKEhZidoivWp9GK5L1eTaNnop2rCudZ7dmAMpAcrCT3C3Tgc

• NPR: Burnout The Crisis Plaguing Healthcare Workers: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/992155573/burnout-the-crisis-plaguing-health-care-workers?fbclid=IwAR3cxeeQfZyCYQOGoR2ps7QoqXlOUDmZQ0ppm5jxciVf2JIYDRsFTetlD04

• Physician Development Coaches at TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine: https://mdschool.tcu.edu/empathetic-scholar/physician-development-coaches/

Crisis Help
• Disaster Distress Helpline: 1-800-985-5990
• National Suicide Prevention Life: 1-800-273-8255 or Chat online with Lifeline
• Crisis Textline: Text TALK to 741741

FORT WORTH – Why does the medical field lend itself so well to performance art that intends to repulse its audience?

TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine faculty member Lauren Mitchell, Ph.D., demonstrated how quickly medicine can shift from medicine to art during her Claudia V. Camp Faculty Research Award lecture entitled “Alienating Aesthetics: Performance Art and the Medical Imagination” based on her academic book project.

The lecture, organized by the Women & Gender Studies Program, highlighted Dr. Mitchell’s award-winning project. “The WGST program is doing some awesome things for TCU both in terms of opportunities for service learning and volunteering with various organizations in the Fort Worth area, as well as in terms of their academic investments,” Dr. Mitchell said.  “I’m thrilled that the School of Interdisciplinary Studies exists at TCU to help foster such unique learning opportunities for faculty and students.  I am especially grateful to WGST for allowing such an innovative, collaborative forum and intellectual community.”

Dr. Mitchell said her lecture considered the relationship between medicine, museums, and performance art, looking  “at the purpose of art that uses surgery as a bizarre aesthetic strategy in order to consider the question of why an artist would want to alienate a spectator, what’s the value of an artistic work that’s invested in repelling its audience and why would medicine, a caregiving field meant to heal the human body be associated with horror and alienation and aesthetics from the 19^th century to now? ”

Dr. Mitchell, who helped develop the medical school’s Compassionate Practice® curriculum, began her research by delving into the oversimplification of the definition of empathy. Empathy is often defined as the ability to feel the feeling of others, however, this is leading to the opposite effect in medicine, she said.

“Our definition of empathy often looks a little narcissistic and a little too contingent on the sense of relatability,” Dr. Mitchell said. “In other words, if you work in any caregiving field, you’re going to come in contact with a multitude of people with whom you can’t easily identify, so what then? And how do you build that bridge?”

Dr. Mitchell said this project is closely tied to her clinical experience with the doula project and managing the reproductive family planning clinic at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.  “Much of this work, while I was there was just to be with my patients in capacities of emotional, physical and informational support as they entered operating room spaces”

Dr. Mitchell’s unique clinical and academic background lends itself to the project as she  expounded on historical context for the western medicinal practices of the 18^th and 19^th century and demonstrated the connective tissue medical museums have with performance art.  Dr. Mitchell discussed how the anatomical Venus, which was a dissectible wax figure of a woman presented sensually to male medical students in the 19^th century, correlated with the feminist works of playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and contemporary artist ORLAN.

Ultimately Dr. Mitchell argues that the goal of performance artists is to use such examples of alienating imagery and force the audience to “acknowledge the limitations of her imagination, while also demanding that she not look away.  From this the hope of a more “useful definition of empathy” can come about allowing those in medicine can broaden the scope of empathy.

Dr. Mitchell will lead a Grand Rounds on Tuesday, May 4 with medical school faculty member Chase Crossno, MPH, who helped develop the medical school’s Compassionate Practice® curriculum.   “This may help our SOM colleagues see how our interdisciplinary and unique sounding curriculum maps onto a practical, medical-student toolkit,” Dr. Mitchell said. “This lecture will also touch on our scholarship that combines the theatre pedagogy that is the backbone of The Compassionate Practice® with close reading.”

She was honored to be the Claudia V. Camp Faculty Research Award winner:  “The award was a reminder that the project still has a place in scholarly dialogue, and I am thrilled to have the support as I revise the draft of Alienating Aesthetics for publication.”

Dr. Mitchell intends to spend the 2021-2022 academic year developing and submitting the manuscript of the book project for publication.

You can view the lecture here.  https://tcu.zoom.us/rec/share/bu4d48Wym9v21PluHS6l-TnLKbcJOZloZPSjjVf37IODEJoV8FA78pGOYyOYGwAo.CxmQdawj54QXk6Mh

Passcode: C2ezSu

FORT WORTH – TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine first-year medical student Sam Sayed gave a talk with his brother, Sharif Sayed, at the TedxDallasCollege 2021 virtual event on April 22.

Sam and Sharif are co-founders of the Arlington-based non-profit Dayna’s Footprints. Their mission is to instill confidence in underserved students by buying them name-brand shoes.

The TedxDallasCollege virtual event used, ‘forward,’ as the theme where the invited speakers gave their take on cross-cultural relations, dismantling social injustices, creating inclusive spaces and overcoming adversity and creating opportunities for people in marginalized communities. The brothers were one of eight featured speakers for this year’s event and titled their eight-minute presentation, “A Day in Their Shoes.”

“Our call to action is combatting learning inequities through less understood ways,” Sam said. “Whether you’re doing it through shoes like us or in a number of other ways that’s what we wanted the talk to be about.”

The brothers created the nonprofit to honor their older sister Dayna Sayed who was killed by gun violence in 1997 at 16 years old. Just before her untimely passing, Dayna, had worked all summer to buy Sam and Sharif their first pairs of expensive shoes. The organization’s mission is to combat learning inequity by providing students shoes to wear proudly, subsequently increasing students’ self-esteem and enthusiasm for attending school.

During their presentation, the duo acknowledged that expensive shoes are not the first thing that comes to mind when people talk about education inequities.

“Most people think about unequal distribution of funding or teaching specialists or the lack of technology or the location of the school,” Sharif said. “But that’s not what kids think about. All those reasons are very important but rarely does anybody think about the disadvantages that persist long before a child even walks out the house to go to school.”

The effect that these kinds of disadvantages have on young children is something that Sam is already searching for a definitive answer for. His Scholarly Thesis & Pursuit 4-year research project at the Fort Worth medical school aims to uncover answers to this persistent problem.

“We’re going to see if we can actually measure this,” Sam said. “Another really cool aspect I’m also researching is the effect it has on the medical students from participating in the shoe drives with kids from marginalized communities. How it’s effecting their cultural competence and their cultural humility over time.”

The TedxDallasCollege, where “x” = independently organized TED event, is a program created by the popular TED organization and their TED Talks programs in an effort to further help spread ideas. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience,” according to the TedxDallasCollege website.

You can watch Sam and Sharif’s TedxDallasCollege presentation using the link below beginning at the 36:24 mark in the video.

TEDxDALLASCOLLEGE 2021 Virtual Event

• Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvOHY2GXRNE

Dear School of Medicine Colleagues,

As the world watched, the verdict of murder was rendered against the police officer in the death of George Floyd. As the jury was instructed by the prosecutor, “Believe your eyes and use common sense.” The power of a 17-year-old woman videotaping the more than 9-minute scene catalogued the event, a powerful tool as we all could ‘believe’ our eyes. And now this young woman lives with the burden of holding herself accountable for not doing more to save Mr. Floyd.

This trial and verdict are monumental for many reasons, not the least of which is that this is reportedly the first time ever a white policeman has been convicted in the death of a black man in Minnesota. We can hope that this represents an inflection point in our society’s introspection and accountability (unfortunately, we have heard/said this before). Just in the last few days, people younger than 18 have died being shot by police in Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio, and as we all know, those two cases don’t even remotely frame this immense epidemic in our country.

Our school has the immense responsibility to train the next generation of physicians. It is imperative that we recognize the systemic racism that exists and address this as a public health crisis. We are immersed in another public health crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic.  However, I am comfortable that we not only are capable of being leaders in both, but also we must address both now!

It is our opportunity to continue these efforts, working diligently to address racism from a public health crisis perspective. I believe this is critical to our mission and the society in which we exist.  I challenge each of us to work together to eliminate health inequities and to strive toward health and racial justice for all.  We all can be leaders in these efforts.

This starts by being unaccepting of the violence that the George Floyd case framed, as well as the ecosystem of access to and affordability of health care, living conditions, infrastructure such as public transportation and internet access, food deserts, etc. We must ensure that these issues are always addressed in our training and our culture from the moment a student arrives to when they graduate. In the public health mission to address and eliminate racism and related factors, it is imperative that our graduates are prepared to lead this charge.

We can, and candidly, we must make a difference.

Stuart D. Flynn, M.D.
Dean