Friday, March 29, 2024

Only 9 Black Women in US History Have Been Pediatric Surgeons. Meet Number 9. (Video)

*Dr. Kanika Bowen-Jallow – who went through college, medical school and a residency in her home state of Texas, said it was eight years into her journey toward becoming a pediatric surgeon before she met a doctor who looked like her – Black and female.

Now, Dr. Bowen-Jallow, a pediatric surgeon at Cook Children’s Pediatric Surgery Center in Prosper, Texas, is a trailblazer in her own right as only the ninth Black female pediatric surgeon in the United States, according to the American Pediatric Surgical Association (APSA).

“I honestly had never thought about it before because there are so few of us, that’s always been my reality,” Bowen-Jallow told “Good Morning America.” “You’re just used to that.”

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Dr. Kanika Bowen-Jallow poses at Cook Children”s Pediatric Surgery Center in Prosper, Texas.

Dr. Bowen-Jallow left Texas to complete her fellowship in pediatric surgery at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. It was only there, as she attended conferences in the field, that she said she began seeing other Black female surgeons. “At conferences, you sort of gravitate toward each other,” she said of being one of only a few Black women in her field. “I was used to being a ‘one of the only.’ Did that make it easier? No, but I kind of knew the struggles that went with it.”

It was that determination that pushed her past discrimination she has experienced along the way, she said.

“I remember when I was in residency and I had my white coat on and was a surgical resident,” Bowen-Jallow said. “And a woman looked at me and asked if I was there to change the sheets. I was rather taken aback by that, but of course it wasn’t the first or the last slight I’ve ever encountered.”

Dr. Bowen-Jallow, one of three Black women in her medical school class of over 100 students, recalled being told by a high school teacher that she would never be a physician because she was not good at math. She said she now gives out her email address and cell phone number to high school students interested in medical school so she can help them reach their goals.

Watch below:

Across the country, less than 3% of doctors in 2019 identified as Black or African-American, according to data from the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC). The low number of Black doctors in the U.S. has remained largely stagnant for the past several decades, according to the AAMC.

“Even in my personal life, when I go see physicians, when I see a physician of color, I find that there is a little bit longer that we talk, a little bit more information that is provided, and maybe that’s because they don’t have this implicit bias,” she said. “I know that they have their own experiences and they bring those experiences to clinic and that really opens up the conversation.”

Kevin Greene, assistant vice president of Cook Children’s-Prosper, recruited Bowen-Jallow to the medical center in Prosper, a town of around 30,000 residents in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.

“She’s a great surgeon, she comes from great training and she’s really been able to inspire and connect with families,” he said. “She’s someone who personally wants to provide the best care for every child that steps foot on our campus.”

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