This Website Helps You Locate Black Doctors

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

Since a handful of scholarly reports show wellness rates tend to increase when Black patients receive treatment from Black doctors, you may want to check out an updated website that will help you locate a Black physician in your area.

The new location service is called Find a Black Doctor.com. Launched in 2005 by a busy New York City dermatologist, the website fell off of the grid in 2008 but was relaunched in 2019, a year after a groundbreaking 2018 Stanford study showed Black male patients were more likely to follow through on treatment plans recommended by Black physicians.

Specifically, the 2018 Stanford study showed men in Oakland left a Black barber shop (or flea market), and not only sought treatment at a pop-up medical clinic staffed with 14 male doctors, they also asked to receive more preventive services than patients who met with non-Black physicians. The men who were seen by Black physicians were more likely to strike up a conversation, open up and consent to preventive services like cardiovascular screenings and immunizations.

The 1300 Black male participants completed a short survey, received a $25 voucher for their haircut and received free health-care screening for blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol and diabetes at the clinic where the Stanford team operated on Saturdays in the fall and winter of 2017-2018. The patients who did not have transportation to the clinic were given free rides courtesy of Uber. Attendance at the clinic was encouraged with another $50 incentive.

“Prior to doing the study, we really were not sure if there would be any effect, much less the magnitude, “  said Dr. Marcella Alsan, M.D., lead author of the 2018 Stanford study that conducted a randomized clinical trial among 1,300 Black men in Oakland. “The signal in our data ended up being quite strong,” she explained.

“We found that, once African-American men were at the clinic, even though all services were free, those assigned to a Black doctor took up more services,” such as flu shots and diabetes and cholesterol screenings, said Alsan, an economist and infectious disease physician who focuses on health and socioeconomic disparities here at home and around the world.

Another physician who participated in the groundbreaking 2018 Stanford study said, “I was definitely surprised,” said Owen Garrick, president and COO of Bridge Clinical Research, an Oakland-based organization that helps clinical researchers find patients from underserved ethnic groups. “If you ask most people, they feel that there is some impact of Black men seeing Black doctors – but it has never been quantified using an experimental design.”

Garrick said Black doctors tend to present themselves in a manner that puts a Black patient at ease, making him more willing to open up and agree to certain care. “The Black doctor might explain the medical services in a way that the Black patient more clearly understands.” Black men in the 2018 Stanford study agreed to diabetes and cholesterol screenings and flu vaccines suggested by a Black doctor.

Exactly why did this happen? Experts say Black physicians are more likely than physicians from other racial or ethnic groups to engage in outside health-related work. This means Black physicians are more likely to provide health-related expertise in Black neighborhood settings. They are more likely to be politically involved in health-related matters at the local, state, or national level.

And they are also more likely to have experienced racial marginalization in a health care setting.  “When I step into a patient’s room, I am often seen as everything but the doctor. Even when talking to other staff members, I’m always assumed to be the nurse or the social worker,” Donna Whyte-Stewart, M.D., said in a 2021 Haverford College Alumni College magazine report titled, “Why the U.S. Needs More Black Physicians.”

Meanwhile, Dr. James Carter, a 30-year veteran cardiologist who specializes in wound care at the University of Colorado Hospital, described how he entered a Black patient’s hospital room. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Finally, he asked what she was looking at. “I had no idea there were Black doctors on this campus,” she said. Carter’s patient was a Black female who had visited the emergency room twice with stroke symptoms; both times, she was discharged without a stroke diagnosis, even though she had indeed suffered a stroke.

“That would not have happened if she’d had a Black doctor,” Carter told Haverford College Alumni College magazine. “There are many institutional biases that have to be dismantled. We need change.”

Here is another example of how Black wellness improves when Black patients collaborate with Black doctors.

Wellness steadily improved after The Jackson Heart Study was launched two-dozen years ago in Mississippi. It was conceived in the late 1990s and began enrolling participants, ages 35-84, in 2000.  Participants were recruited from urban and rural areas in three counties (Hinds, Madison and Rankin), according to its website.

Ten years after the largest single-site, community-based epidemiologic investigation of environmental and genetic factors associated with cardiovascular disease among African-Americans was launched, a first article provided clarification on the association between body size and CVD risk in Blacks. The second article described the low rate of treatment of dyslipidemia (unhealthy levels of fats in the blood) in Blacks. The third demonstrated the opportunity provided by the Jackson Heart Study cohort to clarify the value of screening tests to identify CVD (cardiovascular) risk in Blacks

(The Jackson Heart Study was launched and funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD).

The newly expanded Find a Doctor.com website allows patients to search for providers based on their location and specific healthcare needs. The site includes detailed profiles of physicians, dentists, psychologists, and other specialists. Listings are free for the doctors. The site also contains content aimed to increase health and healthcare literacy.