A behind the scenes look at making change at the local and national level. Grateful for the invitation to have such an important conversation about the role of race in clinical decision tools. Spoiler ➡️ Race should be replaced by racism.

Let's stop normalizing hate presented as comedy.

Granddaddy always held his head up high when we walked the halls of the Jesse Brown VA together. He looked like a proud soldier with his doctor granddaughter by his side 🥹.

Missing my very first veteran patient today y'all. Wishing him and all veterans the best Veterans Day.

Today I reflect on how this man sacrificed both physically and emotionally to protect and serve this country.

Thinking of how this boy changed after his time serving in the Vietnam war.

UPDATE: Dr. Min Joo crushed her presentation! Can't forget Sheryl Lowery, PharmD's closing statements that persuaded VISN 12 Chiefs of Staffs to cast a vote in favor of removing race from PFT calculations.

Now we wait for VISN 12 pulmonologists to weigh in 😬

Wishing Dr. Min Joo the best as she represents JB4BL today during her HDC presentation to VISN 12!

She will be asking the Midwest VA leaders to join Jesse Brown VA and use race neutral Pulmonary Function Testing!

There should never be a scenario where CKD is an inactive problem in your assessment and plan. Instead an elevated Creatinine should be viewed as cannot rule out acute injury.

CKD should never be a stable, background problem. Never.

Appreciate the support🥰
Credit also to Dr. Cheryl Conner, Dr. Marci Laragh, Dr. Bijal Jain, Dr. Ambareen Khan, Sheryl Lowery, PharmD, Samantha White, APRN, Jane Weber, APRN, Tenisha Fennie, LCSW, Dr. Deepa Yohannan, Dr. Dawn Brown, a few OG members who built JB4BL from scratch❤️

Guess who the Director and Chief of Staff named the Strategic Initiative Lead for Health Equity at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center for FY23.

This gal!

Who ever said you can't get things done at the VA 💪🏾😉 Let's go JB4BL!

One of my VA patients opened up about his time in Vietnam. So grateful he trusted me. Asked him how often he thinks about his time in service. He said 'everyday'. Sigh.

Reminder to honor and cherish our Veterans who sacrificed more than we will ever know.

✅Briefing to the Defense Health Board on how to address the systems barriers when addressing racial & ethnic health disparities within the Military Health system.

Go Jesse Brown for Black Lives (JB4BL) Task Force!

Today it is still easier to prescribe a patient morphine (for 5 days) than to prescribe the life-saving medication treatment for opioid use disorders (MOUD) which address opioid use and related mortality.

Do you see the problem?

It's official Jesse Brown VA Medical center in Chicago will be one of the few hospitals to remove the race coefficient from pulmonary function tests (PFTs) on August 1st 2022!

On to the next raced based clinical algorithm ✅

Crescensia Garcia, who is 102 years old, is one of the last surviving members of an all-female, all-Black unit that served in WWII — and she’s now getting long-overdue recognition.

Garcia shares her untold story with David Begnaud, and gets a surprise from a big fan.

Specialty service attending with good intentions says: Hi are you all Respiratory? (Though pt has no respiratory issues)

Me standing with 5 trainees: No, with Medicine. Mind you, said team entered room as I was relaying the medical plan for the day to pt 🙃

When a program director like Aashish Didwania devotes #10 years to making the residency program NU Internal Medicine THAT much better we have to celebrate! 🎊🎁.

Congratulations Aashish Didwania and thank you for everything! 🐐

The day before our planned vigil for Buffalo shooting victims, news comes out about the Uvalde shooting 😔. Before speaking to the crowd the chaplain acknowledges that we were not prepared to talk about yet another shooting. #EndGunViolence #JB4BL

These faces say it all #EndGunViolence