Black Health Care Pioneers Inspire Community
Four pioneers of community health care in Miami came to the Mailman Center for Child Development at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Wednesday night to share lessons from the past and inspiration for the future at a Black History Month roundtable.
“We wanted to do this because it’s so important to understand our community, to understand its history, and one of the best ways to do that is to listen to the people who have lived it,” said Judy Schaechter, M.D., M.B.A., Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, which joined the dean’s office in hosting Black Health Care History in Miami: Practitioners’ Perspectives.
“Diversity is extremely important in health care,” Schaechter added. “It affects the quality of care we provide, particularly in communities that have been neglected.”
Nelson Adams, M.D., an OB/GYN in North Miami Beach, chief of OB/GYN at Jackson North Medical Center, and past president of the National Medical Association, echoed that emphasis on recognizing the social determinants of health. “When I look at the health status of many of the people I care for, it’s not much better than when I started,” he said. He urged the audience of physicians, nurses, students and residents to remain committed to “the least, the lost and the left out.”
Adams proudly announced that the pediatrician who took care of him as a child was sitting next to him – Dr. Dazelle Simpson, who began practicing medicine in 1953 and became Miami’s first black board-certified pediatrician. In her early years, she faced a community that was surprised to encounter a woman physician. But she went on to serve Overtown and Liberty City for more than 40 years, shaping child health and community health overall. “We all have to realize that we’re advocates,” Simpson said.
Joining Adams and Simpson on the panel were Annie Neasman, RN, M.S., president and CEO of the Jessie Trice Community Health Center, and Laurinus Pierre, M.D., M.P.H., executive director of the Center for Haitian Studies, Health and Human Services.
“These pioneers achieved early recognition as physicians and nurses in an environment that wasn’t supportive,” said Laurence B. Gardner, M.D. interim dean of the Miller School of Medicine. “They reinforced the mission of the medical profession and the Miller School: caring for people, and especially caring for people who have little or no alternatives.”