Rallying Against Racism: Hospitals Join the Fight for Racial Justice
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Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital Boston, MA, USA; 2Harvard Medical School Boston, MA, USA.
This article highlights the timely situation that resident physicians, faculty, and staff are facing after the recent highly publicized murders of Black Americans and its impact on our healthcare communities. We discuss our experiences of how the hospital can serve as a meeting place for anti-racism, as well as how anti-racist events at the hospital can raise public consciousness and be catalysts for creating a more inclusive, diverse, and welcoming environment for all members of hospital communities. J Gen Intern Med DOI: 10.1007/s11606-020-06291-2 © Society of General Internal Medicine 2020
know a guy in the AV department who can get us a “I microphone.” Those simple words propelled a once far-
fetched idea into action. Though separated through computer screens, we all could sense the flicker of determination in each other’s eyes. It was a late Sunday night when we first gathered as resident physicians from several Boston hospitals to discuss the impact of the recent racial violence on our hospital communities. We were exhausted after innumerable long days on COVID-19 wards, but that night we were energized. Our shared resolve to address racism within our own hospital walls compelled us to take the microphone. It was time to collectively amplify the voices of Black physicians in our hospitals and across the entire city of Boston. Boston’s dense concentration of academic hospitals is often described as disjointed and competitive, but it took just days to synchronize anti-racism efforts across our academic health centers. In the wake of the horrific deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade, and too many others, hospitals across Boston surprised nearly everyone when they became hosts of anti-racism protests. Most of these peaceful demonstrations were spearheaded by concerned groups of resident physicians.
Prior Presentations N/A Received September 8, 2020 Accepted October 5, 2020
Historically, hospitals have not been welcoming spaces for public organizing efforts.1 Medical centers rarely host demonstrations, especially on topics as historically divisive and pernicious as racism. Some members of our working group worried a demonstration would be deemed unprofessional by hospital leadership. The mission became too critical to become ensnared by fear. We leaned into the words of Angela Davis: “Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don’t yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it’s actually going to be possible.” During that first late-night meeting, our group of residents began to reimagine the hospital as a pivotal convening place in the fight for racial justice. We discussed how academic medical centers too often teach us to center white voices, view white leadership as “normal,” and consider racial justice work as optional. Black colleagues shared how they are often forced to shoulder anti-racist initiatives, risk facing invalidation, marginalization, and retaliati
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