Did you know that for 20 years, doctors have been estimating how fast the kidneys are filtering the blood (the glomerular filtration rate or GFR) using an equation that includes a “Black race correction”?
my final straw
“My pending exodus from academic medicine after 15 years…” This is how I started my piece recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. I wrote my thoughts on what academia needs to do to right the wrongs that centuries of racism and anti-Blackness have created, but not on the experience that served as my final straw. A story in the news since then makes me want to share it now…
birthday wish
Today is my 50th birthday.
A couple of weeks ago, I was lamenting my birthday’s approach because of its promise of middle-aged woman invisibility as punishment for graying hair and slowing metabolism. I managed to climb out of self-pitying funk long enough to eke out a “happy 50th birthday old man” wish to a Latino friend. His response: “Lol…Thank you. Crazy. Never thought I’d live past my 20s yet here I am.” And the next day George Floyd was murdered, just days after we learned about Breonna Taylor’s and Ahmaud Arbery’s murders. George was 46. Breonna was 26. Ahmaud was 25.
on being the only one like me
I am not a good tourist. I drove from North Carolina to California for my research year in medical school like it was a job. I drove 8 hours a day and spent the night in a hotel, not once deviating off the freeway to explore whatever sights. Every time I travel for a work meeting, I’m in and out of the city as quickly as possible, rarely having an inkling of regret for not having explored the city.
Yet when I was invited to speak at the Indian Society of Nephrology last year, I accepted. In part because the academic world I lived in at the time said I needed to have an “international presence” to advance my career. And also because they were flying me business class and paying me a little bit of money. Had it been coach and just for my CV, then somebody would have needed to explain to me, Why should I do this again? like I was “this many” years old.