When you first arrive in medical school, the first day,
they give you a white coat.
They give you scrubs.
They send you to the bookstore where
you buy your tools that you need for your anatomy class,
your books.
So I remember buying a leather case
with 10 instruments for anatomy.
And I went into my first anatomy class
feeling super confident and ready and excited.
And I look over at the next table and the next group
of students, and one of those students
had a father who was a surgeon.
He had a tray with over 100 instruments.
So I just looked at that and I thought, how can I ever compete?
How can I be successful in this place, when even from the start,
I felt like I was starting from a place of lesser?
So we're now in P117.
And this was really the place where everything
happened in medical school.
We had many of our lectures here.
There was a lot of angst and anxiety before our exams.
But also, it was a real place where we really
learned the basics of medicine.
And most important to me is, it was right around the corner
from the best mentor any medical student could have, Dr. Bowman.
117 is here.
And then Dr. Bowman's office is located right here.
And I would often stop there on the way and say, Dr. Bowman,
I have this test.
And he would be, you can do it.
You have the potential.
And even looking back over the last 30
years of being a physician, really, it all
got started here in P117 and with Dr. James Bowman.
We all actually visited Dr. Bowman on a regular basis.
He was the first African-American faculty member
who had been tenured at the University of Chicago.
And he was someone who always made himself
available to the students.
And Jim knew that people were looking at him constantly,
that people were emulating him, that people
were looking to do and accomplish things
that he had done.
And he was inspirational in trying
to drive you to be able to reach that goal.
The discomfort from feeling like an outsider is excruciating.
And I think you learn to adjust to it,
but it's exhausting over time.
Often, after school, I would walk down
to my father's office, and I saw the respect
that people in the hospital had for him.
And not just his fellow physicians,
but the orderlies, the nurses, the medical students.
Everybody had an affinity for my father.
Dr. Bowman was so important.
He actually interviewed me when I was applying,
and I had no idea the significance
he would play in my life.
Jim's respect for Anita emanated from
her incredible intelligence.
She was so bright and so able.
He believed that talent is ubiquitous
and opportunity is not.
And if he was in a position to give someone
an opportunity that they wouldn't otherwise have,
that would level the playing field,
then he was determined to do that.
There's a very famous story that Dr.
Bowman tells which really sums it up perfectly —
his experience at St. Luke's Hospital, now Rush,
where he was the only African-American physician
there.
All of the Blacks were required to enter the hospital
through the back door.
He refused and went through the front door.
And from the first day onward, people would wait to go in with
him — the nurses, the janitors, the technicians.
And although he went in the front door
and talked about the fact that he was not
going to go in the back, he nevertheless
could not eat in the hospital unless one of his friends
took him as a guest.
And so he took his peanut butter and jelly sandwich
to work every day.
And what he said is, opening the door is hard,
but you walk through it and then you
leave the door open for others to follow behind you.
I overheard some majority students
saying something like, they're only here
because of affirmative action.
And that made me feel so much like an outsider.
Not only was I an outsider, but I wasn't welcomed here.
And it was very hurtful.
And I remember going and talking to Dr. Bowman then,
and he told me, you know, you're every bit as good, every bit as
capable as any other medical student that you encounter.
And he really created this sense of belonging,
this nurturing, that really gave me a pathway to be successful.
If you look at the primary service
area of the South Side of Chicago, it's about 90% Black.
A community like Englewood, the life expectancy
is a full 30 years less if you live in Englewood versus
if you live in Streeterville, maybe
15-minute distance in a car.
When I saw the difference in illness and pathology
as it presents to those who are insured versus uninsured,
that I realized that there's so much work to be done.
The turning point was really when we went from the first two
years of just learning through textbook and exam and courses
to the clinical work.
The patients were so excited to see other people who looked
like them taking care of them.
So that's where we felt like we really
could shine beyond the average medical student
and where we really felt a sense of ourselves and the work
that we were doing.
It's really amazing.
And it really was a community.
I remember when I was finishing medical school
and thinking about residency.
And I had many offers to go work in the suburbs,
but it was Dr. Bowman who reminded
me the importance of people seeing
examples who look like them.
So he was the key reason that I stayed on here and continued
a career here at University of Chicago.
I think we have to do more to make people imagine themselves
in positions of greatness, and that's really
where the pictures on the wall come in.
It is a hallway of a lot of White people in the class
pictures that are here.
And not to reduce their significance,
obviously that's incredibly important.
It's not an either/or.
It's an and.
It's let's keep these pictures, but let's add some more.
Let's create more space, so people can see themselves
in the people who are highly regarded on the campus.