I saw racism firsthand growing up. It makes me a better doctor for Black patients.

I was in elementary school when I learned my skin color meant something.

My brothers and I were spending the weekend at my father’s apartment. His building was located just outside of Chicago in a nearly all-white community. When we would visit, one of our favorite things was to go down to the swimming pool. The first time we got in the pool, the parents of the white children came and called their children home. I didn’t think anything of it. To me, it seemed purely coincidental that they would need to leave the pool as we were arriving. But then it happened the next time we visited. And the next.

I realized they were leaving the pool because of me and my brothers. Why were we being treated differently? I was confused. Had we done something wrong? Maybe they didn’t know we lived in the apartment complex and had a right to use the pool. It hurt.

At that time, I didn’t know this would be one of many lived Black experiences I would have. I didn’t know that this was the type of experience many people of color would have during their life – be it at a pool, in a classroom, while applying for a job or seeking medical care.

Becoming a physician

I was in seventh grade when I decided I wanted to be a doctor.

My brothers and I spent nearly every free moment, after school and homework, playing and riding our bikes. We would cruise through the streets of our Detroit neighborhood, racing each other and popping wheelies until my father – a doctor – found out we weren’t wearing helmets.

He shared with us how important it was to be safe and that if we didn’t wear a helmet, we could fracture our skull. Then he showed us images I’ll never forget: an X-ray of a child with a fractured skull. As my father explained what anatomy was, my eyes followed the fracture lines. It was the first time I had ever seen anything like that. I was both fascinated by what I saw and heard my father say, and pained by the suffering that child had experienced. In that moment, I knew I wanted to help.

After graduating from Harvard with an MD and an MBA, I chose to be a different kind of practitioner. Rather than care for one patient at a time, I felt an urgent need to enter a career that would allow me to impact thousands and possibly millions of people at a time. That, I believe, has been my calling. I wanted to find a way to reduce suffering for as many people as possible.

Leveraging my lived experience to make a difference

The unfortunate reality of health care in America is that, to this day, there are widespread disparities in medicine across many fields in the outcomes for people of color, representing real suffering. That suffering can be seen in the differential rates of maternal mortality rates, diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease and kidney transplants rates, breast cancer survival, and countless others.

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Changing this systemic problem for the medical establishment requires acknowledging the reality that many people of color have a lived experience that makes them distrust and mistrust the system itself. In addition to unconscionable programs like the Tuskegee syphilis study and the case of Henrietta Lacks, there are many less well-known yet equally disturbing cases of medical experimentation on Black and Native American women, fistula repairs without anesthesia and drug testing without permission. Black people and many other minority communities have years of experience that make it difficult to trust a system that is designed to care for them.

The solution? Be mindful of this history and contextualize it by letting your patients know, “I hear you. I see you.”

I chose to focus on kidney care for the past decade. While working at a large dialysis company, I was able to be a part of a team that improved care for patients, allowing them to live the best lives they could. Still, I was frustrated seeing patients receive treatment only after their kidneys were already failing. I saw inequities and racial disparity: Black patients and other patients of color disproportionately affected by kidney disease, living on dialysis, waiting for a transplant.

I knew there had to be a better model – one where we could get in front of the disease. A model that would help more patients to be seen and heard, well before their kidneys failed and with time to leverage more treatment options.

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No model like that existed. With the help of a team, I created one.

In 2016, my business partner and I founded Somatus with the purpose of completely revolutionizing the kidney care industry. Myself, my co-founder and half of our board of directors are people of color. Aligning with community-based providers, we’ve built a diverse organization, in terms of race and gender, that reflects our patients and, more important, sees them and hears them.

I have hope

Today, I know we can make a difference. 

It's important to celebrate progress and yet recognize we have a long way to go to have equity in health care.

I believe that it takes a village to solve these issues and show up for our communities of color – and that’s the village we all live and work in. We need to look closely at how providers and the greater medical establishment choose to engage patients of color.

I recently experienced a sports injury and received phenomenal care from a Korean American orthopedist. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that he hears me, that he cares about me and that he is treating me as he would his brother. I felt it, it comforted me and I think that kind of approach advances recovery and outcomes.

To every doctor, nurse and caregiver who treats a Black patient or any patient of color, I ask that you make a conscious effort to chip away at this wall of mistrust and distrust. Treat your patients as if they are your loved ones.

Having a connection with your physician or medical provider can make all the difference. Please listen to your patients. Tell each patient, “I hear you. I see you. I want to understand you because I care about you.”

If we all did this, little by little, we could close the gap together.

Ikenna Okezie, MD, MBA is chief executive officer and co-founder of Somatus. He graduated cum laude from Yale University with a BA in Economics, an MD from Harvard Medical School, and his MBA with Honors from Harvard Business School.