Uché Blackstock

Uché Blackstock is an American emergency physician and former associate professor of emergency medicine at the New York University School of Medicine.

She is the founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, which has a primary mission to engage with healthcare and related organizations around bias and racism in healthcare with the goal of mobilizing for health equity and eradicating racialized health inequities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Blackstock used social media to share her experiences and concerns as a physician working on the front lines and on racial health disparities and inequities exposed by the pandemic.

She is best known for her work amplifying the message on racial health inequities and her media appearances speaking on the COVID-19 pandemic.

They both graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1995 and attended undergrad and medical school at Harvard, following in their mother's footsteps into medicine.

During Blackstock's sophomore year, her mother fell ill with leukemia and in July 1997, died.

During her time at Harvard University, Blackstock also took an interest in journalism, writing for The Harvard Crimson.

When Blackstock and her sister graduated from Harvard Medical School in 2005, they became the first Black mother-daughter legacy to do so.

Following graduation, Blackstock completed her residency at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where she was named Chief Resident and specialized in emergency medicine.

She later moved on to Mount Sinai Morningside to complete an emergency ultrasound fellowship in 2010.

In July 2010, Blackstock was appointed as an assistant professor at the New York University School of Medicine, where she held a simultaneous position as an emergency physician.

At the time, fewer than two percent of American physicians were black women.

Soon thereafter, in 2012, she was named Ultrasound Content Director at the university.

In this role, Blackstock developed and implemented a longitudinal point-of-care ultrasound curriculum for medical students.

In October 2017, Blackstock was named the Faculty Director for Recruitment, Retention and Inclusion in the Office of Diversity Affairs at New York University School of Medicine, where she was responsible for developing and implementing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for Black, Latino, and Indigenous faculty at the university.

In March 2018, Blackstock established Advancing Health Equity, an organization focused on partnering with healthcare and related organizations to address racial health inequities.

She believes that a diverse workforce, and one where everyone feels valued and respected, is essential for quality patient care.

As part of the organization, Blackstock facilitates trainings with healthcare organizations in unconscious bias, structural racism, and health equity and also provides consulting services to support organizations in achieving their health equity goals.

Previous clients include Salesforce, Northwestern Lurie Children's Hospital, and Partners HealthCare System.

Blackstock left NYU School of Medicine in 2019 due to the inhospitable environment for Black trainees and faculty.

In 2019, Blackstock was selected by Forbes as one of ten diversity and inclusion trailblazers you need to get familiar with.

Blackstock currently works part-time at several urgent care centers in Brooklyn.

The centers usually deal with minor conditions, but during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Blackstock noticed that patients were presenting with the symptoms of coronavirus disease.

She used social media to describe the challenges that she had getting testing for her patients, especially "when celebrities are getting tested with ease and quick turnaround times".

She became concerned about how the coronavirus pandemic would affect black patients.

In an interview with Slate, Blackstock remarked, "When I heard about doctors in Italy having to ration ventilators and then the incredibly likely possibility that that is going to happen here, my first thought was so many Black people are going to die."

She has spoken and written about the potential racial health inequities that would be exposed and amplified by the pandemic, and what federal, state and local officials needed to do to mitigate the virus' spread among the country's most vulnerable populations.

Throughout the crisis, Blackstock has appeared consistently on podcasts, radio, digital and network news committed to conveying responsibly and accurate information about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Blackstock became a Yahoo! News Medical Contributor in June 2020.

Blackstock is originally from Brooklyn.

She grew up in Crown Heights alongside her fraternal twin sister, Oni Blackstock.

Their mother, Dale Gloria Blackstock, studied medicine at Harvard University and was the first member of her family to attend college.

During her practice, she specialized in nephrology and served as president of an organization for Brooklyn's black women doctors.

Blackstock's father, Earl, was an accountant.

Blackstock and her sister spent much of their childhood with their mother at the hospital, or watching her work in community health programs in Brooklyn.

She wrote an op-ed to further detail in January 2020.

Her main reasons included a toxic work environment, sexism, racism and denial of promotion.

She has called for academic medical centers to better appreciate and rectify the impact of racism in healthcare.

Blackstock has worked to bring attention to racism in healthcare since early in her career.

Her Mother's life challenges and death, along with the racial health inequities that Blackstock witnessed as a physician, were the inspiration to start her own organization.