The future is bright for Black excellence, says Nicolas Cadet, MDCM鈥�12. Less than a decade since graduating from 不良研究所, the ophthalmologist and oculoplastic surgeon is launching a bursary through the for Black students in healthcare fields who are also aspiring social entrepreneurs.
Growing up, Cadet followed his father, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor from Haiti to congregations across the island of Montreal where he saw from a young age the disparities in access to health care in Black communities. Cadet learned early on the importance of not only physical health, but also spiritual and mental health, from his father, as well as from his mother, a Qu茅b茅coise doctor practicing on the South Shore. His foundation aims to empower Black students to maintain a balance between the rigorous academic demands of medical school, and the individual passions that can transform the profession into one that emphasizes compassion and fosters individual talents.
Cadet is an example himself as an organizer of health and education clinics in Montreal and Haiti and a founder of the Alliance of Black Healthcare Professionals of Quebec, which brings together doctors, nurses and other professionals from different Black communities to promote social change. 不良研究所, says Cadet, has a role to play in ameliorating culturally sensitive community care by training more Black physicians and surgeons, but also by hiring Black health educators and administrators.
At 不良研究所, the Office of Social Accountability and Community Engagement (SACE) is also taking steps to make its student body more representative of Montreal鈥檚 diversity through the Black Candidate Pathway, which will welcome top Black applicants to the Fall 2022 cohort. (This was developed in collaboration with Anita Brown-Johnson, MDCM鈥�88, PGME'90, 2021 Haile T. Debas Prize laureate, 不良研究所 assistant professor and Chief of Family Medicine at the 不良研究所 Health Centre. Working with SACE and medical students such as Victoire Kpad茅 of the Class of 鈥�22, Brown-Johnson helped to set in motion a program that would support the Black medical student experience from application to graduation.) SACE鈥檚 Community of Support program聽provides mentorship and resources for current students and Black youth considering a future in medicine and will offer free CASPer and MCAT prep courses for potential applicants.
Iyman Ahmed, who grew up in Toronto, worked for several years improving access to global education opportunities for students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She recently returned to Canada to take a position at SACE, where she puts into practice her experience helping students thrive聽while administering both the Black Candidate Pathway and Community of Support. This brings her into contact with students such as Lashanda Skerritt, an MDCM & PhD student pursuing her PhD in Family Medicine and a Vanier Scholar researching health inequities and improving reproductive health care for women living with HIV in Canada.
In 2017, Skerritt co-founded the Supporting Young Black Students initiative with Clement B茅langer Bishinga, MDCM鈥�21, to demystify med school for high school and CEGEP students. The mentorship program was the impetus for the Community of Support program.
The three joined FMHS Focus, the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences donor and alumni newsletter, for a discussion about equity and diversity in medicine. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What changes to medical education do you see as being necessary from where we are right now?
Iyman Ahmed: What we want to see is increasing the number of Black students in medicine in general.聽That is the ultimate goal of the Black Candidate Pathway, which is a newly launched initiative in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences for applicants to the MDCM program to address the under-representation of Black students and practicing physicians.
Lashanda Skerritt: Once we鈥檝e matriculated into the program, what we鈥檇 like to see is more baseline acknowledgement of the racial injustices and the history that has created a lot of the systemic problems within the healthcare system and the profession. I think 不良研究所 is working on acknowledging this. And then we need strategies to redress a lot of those inequities, removing some of those systemic barriers, supporting students who might not have equal social network or social capital to have access to or succeed in this profession.
Nicolas Cadet: It needs to be recognized that medicine was very monolithic and not very diverse to start with. One thing that needs to be changed also is the curriculum. For example, in the Bates' Guide when you study for physical exams you shouldn鈥檛 only see pictures of Caucasian patients, you should also see pictures of how diseases present in patients of colour. You might be Black yourself as a physician or healthcare practitioner, but if you weren鈥檛 taught to recognize something, then you won鈥檛.
LS: There鈥檚 often a mindset in institutions that we鈥檙e implementing equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives as a type of charity to marginalized groups, which is wrong. When we have more diverse perspectives among faculty and students, it makes medicine more excellent. It鈥檚 not about making institutions diverse for the sake of diversity, but because that is how medicine becomes better and achieves its goals in a more intentional way. It means we鈥檙e going to be able to treat patients better and achieve education that is more inclusive of all the needs of the community.
IA: I totally agree. The reason that we talk about the numbers of students is because they are just shockingly low, not because we鈥檙e trying to meet a quota or checking a box. This is a holistic approach to make health care better for every Canadian. Especially in a multicultural place like Montreal, to not have representation of a community is a disadvantage to the whole medical community.
Speaking about the Black Candidate Pathway, how is it different from what鈥檚 been done before?
IA: The Pathway means that students who identify as Black on their application will have their application reviewed by a committee set up uniquely to take into account the systemic barriers and social realities of these applicants. While there are no official targets, we hope to have approximately 8-10 Black students admitted each year into the MDCM program.
The SACE office has been collecting racial demographic data from students who are admitted into medicine and other health sciences programs, but it鈥檚 all voluntary. We need a better system of data collection to better evaluate needs and outcomes. This is an issue tied to the absence of reliable demographic data at the national and provincial level.
The admissions process is quite involved. What are some of the other barriers to applying to medical school?
LS: There are a lot of financial barriers and constraints that make this a difficult profession to take the plunge to commit to doing. Also, it鈥檚 challenging when you don鈥檛 see or know anyone who has gone down this path. I always saw medicine as something that other people do and I wasn't聽sure I鈥檇 fit into the profession, I think that is the experience for a lot of students. What鈥檚 great about the Black Candidate Pathway is that it tells students 鈥淲e really want you here, you belong here.鈥�
IA: There is also a cultural barrier. If you don鈥檛 have anyone in your family or know anyone that practices medicine, you have no idea what it entails. Experiential programs that allow you to see what it鈥檚 like to pursue medicine make it more real and achievable.
NC: There is also a need for greater organization and unity among healthcare workers. For me, I鈥檓 the first Black oculoplastic surgeon in Canada. There is often no one pulling you forward, but you have to make it through the wall and pull others forward with you.
On the issue of financial barriers, what is the Cadet Foundation鈥檚 aim?
NC: The Cadet Foundation鈥檚 objective is to promote holistic health with a special focus on Black communities in Montreal, Haiti and internationally. The Cadet Foundation is a continuity of what my parents were doing before, being involved in community services, being interested in people鈥檚 health聽and seeing people holistically.
Growing up I could see there were a lot of needs. Our communities are in areas where hospitals are far apart, without many clinics or physicians. Oftentimes physicians working are not people who understand the cultural or linguistic aspects, though we do have physicians from the Haitian communities. We saw also through the pandemic the many challenges Black communities were facing. We heard a lot about Montr茅al-Nord, but it was the case in all other Black neighbourhoods as well.
We want to help build the network of Black medical leaders, people who truly care about their communities and want to give back. We want them also to see themselves as a whole. Through my own experience, I learned that medical school is unidimensional and so intense that it鈥檚 hard to pursue other interests that make you a better physician. It鈥檚 easy to lose yourself as a person and only see yourself as a physician.
What were your experiences in medical school?
NC: Because we rarely see Black physicians training us, we might ask: 鈥淚s it because we鈥檙e not good enough, or there aren鈥檛 any of us?鈥� One thing I realize is quite common is the whole problem with imposter syndrome any time you face a challenge鈥攁nd throughout your medical career it鈥檚 impossible you won鈥檛 be challenged because it is so demanding. You are always asking, 鈥淒id this happen because I鈥檓 Black, or did a person treat me this way because I鈥檓 Black?鈥� or sometimes you might ask, 鈥淪hould I even be here as a Black person?鈥�
Before my medical studies it was smooth sailing, and then you get into medicine. It was a completely new league. Let鈥檚 say if you are great at NCAA basketball, medical school and residency is the NBA. Everyone is bigger, faster, stronger and smarter. That鈥檚 when you start questioning yourself and realize, 鈥淚鈥檓 average at best,鈥� and that can be scary. There is always so much more to learn than what you could reasonably master. Fast-forward into specialty training, you think 鈥淚鈥檓 going to be a master in this field,鈥� but let me tell you, there is always so much more that you need to learn, there are new studies coming out every day, and even something as small as the eyelid, you would be surprised how complex it can be. These are all challenges that fit with the imposter syndrome and the lack of networking and the Black experience as it relates to perceived or real racism.
IA: The sense of isolation and imposter syndrome exist even for those not in medicine, it is prevalent in the humanities and social sciences as well. The magnitude increases once you enter the hard sciences. There is also this misconception that these fields of medicine are somehow immune to racism and inequality because they are neutral and fact-based. But there is a lot of inequality baked into these so-called neutral 鈥渙bjective鈥� sciences.
NC: We don鈥檛 need to go far, the example of Joyce Echaquan and examples in Black communities, that make us realize that systemic racism is alive and well. It affects practitioners, trainees, and in every direction. Our patients fall prey to racism. It鈥檚 important for universities like 不良研究所 and my colleagues to take action. Universities must engage in meaningful consultation with Black faculty, staff, healthcare practitioners and local Black communities to develop comprehensive solutions to address systemic anti-Black racism.
LS: These are not issues for just the Black community to solve. We need other people to be involved. People with the ability to make change, people in positions who can donate to help address financial barriers and help facilitate networks and connections.
Why do you do this work?
NC: When it comes to social entrepreneurship, it鈥檚 one thing to be trained as a physician in the classical sense in how to care for your patients, but it鈥檚 also important for the new generation of physicians to realize that there are so many ways you can contribute to people鈥檚 health. It doesn鈥檛 only mean sitting one-on-one with a patient. One dream I鈥檓 working on right now, I believe we need to have Black community health centres in the Greater Montreal. I鈥檓 working with leaders in our Black communities to make that happen. Culturally sensitive health care鈥� it鈥檚 coming to a neighbourhood close to you very soon.
IA: I am also a graduate student at 不良研究所 studying anti-Black racism in the Middle East through the Institute of Islamic Studies. But my passion for this work comes from how pervasive anti-Blackness is globally, and how personally I take that and want to change it at the institutional and structural levels. I believe in community and grassroots work, but also that change at the top tiers of structures has an impact.
LS: There is so much excellence in the Black community that medicine is missing out on. I see these issues as I鈥檓 navigating different parts of my education and I feel like I have a lot of privilege as a medical student to support other Black students navigating this training path. I want to see people have opportunities to enter medicine and do amazing things in this field.