This past week, I had the honor of co-organizing the workshop series: Bridging The Gap: Diversity and Cultural Competency in Health Care with the NYC Doula Collective and Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. Bridging The Gap was designed to push practitioners and students to strive for competent health care practice by considering the social pressures and expectations intertwined with the realities of different communities.

As part of the workshop, I presented a segment on a topic that hits close to home, Racial Disparities in Health Care. Here is a brief summary of that workshop:

As the role of racial diversity is amplified in society, it is increasingly important for holistic health care providers to be adept at interacting with patients from all backgrounds. The goal of this session was not to define racial diversity but to create a space to share our experiences. In this workshop, participants are given space to navigate the reflections, emotions, and assumptions that surface around race in the field of medicine. Attendees walked away with methods for actively recognizing and assessing racial biases.

If you were unable to attend the workshop or would like resources to develop your knowledge around Racial disparities in Health Care, take a look below. It is my hope that this workshop will continue to develop, and health practitioners interest to provide holistic, and socially/racially conscious health care will grow.

If you are interested in learning more about this workshop or bringing it to your school or community, please contact me.

The Boston Women's Health Book Collective. (1998). Our bodies, ourselves for the new
   century. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Bridges, K. M. (2011). Reproducing race: An ethnography of pregnancy as a
   site of racialization. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Morgen, S. (2002). Into our own hands: The women's health movement in the United States,
   1969-1990. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Nelson, A. (2011). Body and soul: The Black Panther Party and the fight against medical
   discrimination. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.