In Black America; Dr. Patrice Harris, MD: President American Medical Association

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. I planned to be a pediatrician. That was my goal, I always wanted to work with children and so for those in the audience who may not know in medical school, of course you have to do your undergraduate but once you get to medical school, although I have to say this is changing but that's a story for another day. The first two years are mostly in the classroom and the last two years were in the hospital and in the clinic and as a third year medical student at the time was customary to rotate through all the specialties. When I did, you know, 12 months of surgery and not 12 months, I'm sorry, 12 weeks of surgery and internal medicine and family medicine but when I got to my psychiatry rehabilitation I really felt at home.

I have always been fascinated by the brain as an organ and I just felt at home and inspired on my psychiatry rotation and so I decided that I could also combine psychiatry with my love of children. Dr. Patrice A. Harris, MD, a psychiatrist and president of the American Medical Association. Harris was elected as president of the AMA in June 2018 by physicians at the AMA's annual meeting of the House of Delegates. In June 2019 she was sworn in as the first African American woman to lead the organization. Founded in 1847, the AMA has played a critical role in the development of medicine in this country. In July 2008 the American Medical Association issued a formal apology for more than a century of discriminatory policies that excluded African Americans from participating in the organization. It came more than 40 years after AMA delegates denounced policies that state and local medical societies dating back to the 1800s that borrowed African Americans.

Harris was inspired to go into the health profession for a love of children in her community and by TV family doctor Marcus Welby from the TV show Marcus Welby, MD. I'm Johnny Ohenson Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, Dr. Patrice A. Harris, MD, president of the American Medical Association in Black America. I've always believed again in change and of course as you serve on the board of the American Medical Association, of course I've been a previous board member of the American Psychiatric Association. But you have an opportunity to affect change even more as you know board service oversight of our very hard working team, our executive vice president of all the wonderful staff who work so hard on behalf of physicians every day in the AMA. But I think it's important because the board sets strategic goals for the organization highlights

areas where the organization may need to do a little bit more work and so I always think it's important to aspire to leadership certainly as the first African American woman president. Dr. Patrice A. Harris, the practicing psychiatrist in Atlanta, Georgia. She was elected in 2018 to be the 174th president of the American Medical Association. She served one year as president elect and in 2019 she became the first African American to lead the organization. Born and raised in Bluefield, West Virginia in 1982, Harris earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and later a master's degree in counseling psychology from West Virginia University and the medical doctorate from West Virginia University School of Medicine. She completed a psychiatry regency in child psychology fellowship at Emory University School of Medicine. A member of the AMA since 1995, Harris has served a number of leadership positions at the state level including serving on the board as president of the Georgia Psychiatric

Physician Association and on the Medical Association of Georgia Council on legislation. Also, she was the founding president of the Georgia Psychiatry Political Action Committee and July 2019 in Black America spoke with Dr. Harris, president of the American Medical Association. Born and raised in Bluefield, West Virginia, a small town in southern West Virginia, grew up there when the community was thriving. My father worked on the railroads and my mother taught school. She taught junior high school math, later middle school math. I was an only child but blessed to have a lot of cousins who lived in Bluefield. My father had nine siblings and seven of them stayed in Bluefield and so we had a very large, close extended family in fact when people think of the movie Soul Food and remember how on Sundays the table was full of lots of great things to eat.

That's how Sundays were at my grandmother's house who of course also lived in Bluefield. So I really enjoyed growing up in Bluefield, West Virginia. What was some of your activities while you were in high school? Well in high school of course I was very involved, I guess policy was a love of mine even before I even recognized it so of course I was very involved in student government, lots of community groups that were service groups in our small town. I was in the band and was a major at, yeah played clarinet and in both junior high and high school I was a major at. What attracted you to West Virginia University? Well I went to a football game actually when I was in high school with my family I'm a big sports enthusiast particularly football and I went up and I loved the campus candidly

it was close to my parents and certainly although both of my parents were, we were not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination and so staying in state was also a consideration regarding the cost of my education so that's what attracted me to West Virginia University. I did all of my training there and of course completed medical school there but as you may know it was not a straight line path for me and there were some detours and challenges. As I say to everyone every detour and challenge presented a learning opportunity for me and ultimately I was able to achieve my goal of becoming a physician. What was some of those detours and challenges? Well my parents and my family were always very supportive and I tell you it never dawned

on me that I couldn't be anything that I wanted to be but you know when I got to I did not have anyone in my family who had gone to medical school and so I didn't know what to major in I didn't know the process and when I got to the university I you know wasn't always encouraged to continue to pursue to pursue that goal I always tell the story that I was looking through a catalog and yes it was a catalog at the time of potential majors and I was looking through and the only thing that even had anything remotely close to medicine was medical technology and I thought well this must be what you major in if you want to go into medical school but of course that was more of the folks in the wonderful profession who are working our pathology lab and again noble profession not what I wanted to do.

At one point one of my advisors suggested I go to nursing school again a wonderful noble profession but not what I wanted to do but as I said I was persistent and I persevered and ultimately went to medical school. What sparked that initial interest in psychology? Well so I planned to be a pediatrician that was my goal I've always wanted to work with children and so for those in the audience who may not know in medical school of course you have to do your undergraduate but once you get to medical school although I have to say this is changing but that's a story for another day the first two years are mostly in the classroom and the last two years were in the hospital and in the clinic and as a third year medical student at the time was customary to take through all the specialties and I did you know twelve months of surgery and not twelve months I'm sorry twelve weeks

of surgery and internal medicine and family medicine but when I got to my psychiatry rotation I really felt at home I have always been fascinated by the brain as an organ and I would just felt at home and inspired on my psychiatry rotation and so I decided that I could also combine psychiatry with my love of female children and then ultimately pursue a career in child and adolescent psychiatry and so that's how I decided to do psychiatry. Hopefully progress has been made with the other African Americans in your class at medical school. Well at West Virginia I was the only African American in my class but some progress has been made I have to say in both the gender currently about fifty percent of medical school class is made up of women we still have ways to go when it comes to a communities

of color and I have to tell you that we again have a long ways to go regarding African American women but we certainly again as a community as a profession as a society really need to look at the issues of African American men in medical school and not just medical school certainly as a physician I want everyone to aspire to my profession it is it is a wonderful profession but but any but undergraduate but particularly in in medical school we need to certainly work on increasing both African American women but there is a critical shortage of African American men that are pursuing medicine as a career. I would assume setting up any medical practice is difficult but is it more difficult for psychiatric practice? I don't think it's any more difficult than any of my other colleagues

in their specialty certainly we live in a world of some burdensome regulation but I don't think the challenges are any more difficult there are challenges but I always say to medical students or to anyone that has a desire to pursue medicine do it because it allows you up a platform in addition to the wonderful and remarkable honor of being able to care for your patients that that is a relationship that's hard to describe to folks that don't have the honor of doing that but the doctor patient relationship is sacred you know we talk about that and it's hard to appreciate but it's so true and even as a psychiatrist you know my patients talk to me about issues that they may not even be comfortable with talking to other loved ones and so I really can't underestimate the honor and the privilege

of the opportunity to be a physician in any specialty but particularly as a psychiatrist and there are many ways to serve you can set up a private practice if you like you can work in a larger system I always say you know the goal and what we work on at the American Medical Association and all of our advocacy and all of our policy is to make sure that every physician can practice in a location and a setting and a manner that best meets their needs and their family's needs and so that is the ultimate goal and the AMA works on that through our advocacy and our policy. If you're just joining us I'm Johnny Ohansson Jr. and you're listening to End Black America from KUT Radio and we're speaking with Dr. Patrice Harris, Dr. Psychiatry and the president elect of the American Medical Association.

How long have you been a member of the Medical Association? Oh my goodness it's over 20 or 20 years or more you know I always and so my colleagues tease me I say I'm a joiner because I do believe and again there's no one right way to affect change but for me I believe in changing and working from the inside so you know I joined at my local level and my state association and the National Association both in the general area of medicine but also in my specialty because I do believe that you know it's important again there's no one right way to do it but for me it's important to work and work on change and work on policy and advocacy and improvement from the inside. In 30 years the AMA has become more inclusive you will be the first African American woman to lead the organization and it's 173 years why was it important for you to extend to

the leadership? Well again I've always believed again in change and of course as you serve on the board of the American Medical Association of course I've been a previous board member of the American Psychiatric Association but you have an opportunity to affect change even more as you know board service oversight of our very hard working team our executive vice president of all the wonderful staff who work so hard on behalf of physicians every day in the AMA but I think it's important because the board sets a strategic goal for the organization highlights areas where the organization may need to do a little bit more work and so I always think it's important to aspire to leadership certainly as the first African American woman president but I do want to acknowledge Dr. Lonnie Bristo who is the first

African American president of the AMA over 20 years or so ago but I also want to be able to serve as a role model and so that others see that not only can I become a physician but I can also aspire to leadership in organized medicine and be there setting those strategic priorities and goals so that was why it was important for me personally to aspire to leadership within the American Medical Association. Are there any shortcomings of the AMA that you want to address as president? Well there's no shortcomings you know the AMA like any or other organization hopefully I would say other organizations but I know this about the AMA is that you have to continue to keep up with what's going on in your profession the challenges of our profession and that's what we have opportunity to do twice a year when our health delegates meet and set priorities

you know address and identify the areas we know that there continue to be health disparities we know that we need to make sure that the practice environment is sort of a level playing field for physicians we know that we need to address issues of chronic diseases the AMA has as its priority improving health under our goal of improving health outcomes are addressing the issues of pre-diabetes we want everyone to assess their own numbers know their numbers when it comes to their risk for diabetes we want to prevent folks from getting diabetes the other area is hypertension we know that there are a number of folks in this country who have hypertension high blood pressure and it's not under control and of course from high blood pressure and diabetes which affect disproportionately the African-American community untreated our

significant health consequences so we are very proud of our work there you also may know that I chair our AMA's opioid task force we know that there are too many opioid overdoses and opioids are affecting our community have affected our community actually for some time and the goal today we know that in the past the goal has been or the strategy or the intervention was incarceration the AMA is highlighting the importance of treatment for those who have substance use disorders not incarceration and finally another strategic priority is to look I alluded to this a little earlier to look at how we are educating the next generation of physicians and the AMA is leading on that so those are just a few of our priorities but we have a wide portfolio of policies all in the service of improving the health of our nation and again

I just want to highlight just recently at the June meeting where I was elected president elect the House of Delegates passed a report regarding the next phase of our work the AMA's work on health disparities and health equity and so I would ask everyone to stay tuned for our work from that we have a history of great work we co-convene the commission to in health disparities early in the 2000s and now we are embarking on the next phase of our work in that area to promote health equity Dr Harris does the AMA advocate more African-Americans and people of color participating in clinical studies we definitely want to make sure that the results of clinical studies reflect our country if we want to make sure that we are addressing health equities we think it is important for communities of color to participate in those studies

so that we can make sure that treatment and inventions are work across the diverse patient population of our country and so we know and again we know the past history of issues but it's important now for patients to talk to their physicians about those opportunities again it won't be for everyone but it's important as treatment medications interventions are developed we want to make sure that they are developed with some knowledge of how effective they are in diverse patient population Dr Harris addressing you especially why does mental health matter I am so glad you asked that in particular for for this audience you know mental health for so long has been looked at as an aside in some areas outside of the medical mainstream in some areas or as a result of a character flaw or a moral weakness or you just didn't pray hard enough but we

now know that mental disorders mental illnesses including substance use disorders are brain disorders they are absolutely brain disorders we have the science and the evidence to show that and so we have to make sure that that information is out there and it's not about a moral weakness or a character flaw or you just didn't pray hard enough brain disorders or chronic medical conditions just like high-pretension high blood pressure just like diabetes or no cure but there are treatment and we have to make sure that that information is out there I think we've come a long way and we had so many people as you know and oftentimes celebrities come forth with their struggles with bipolar if their struggles with depression with their struggles with substance use disorders and that's important because sometimes it is helpful to see that hey I'm not the only one I do not want anyone to suffer in silence for some patients I've treated in the African

American community they said you know I thought that it was normal to go through life with a depressed suit or a decreased appetite or lack of interest or energy I thought well you know I'm working harder this is happening and that's just a normal state of being and when they have been a successfully treated they realize that that is not a normal state of being and so I definitely again don't want anyone to suffer in silence but I know there's a particular challenge in our community regarding the stigma and so again that will be something else that I have the opportunity to amplify as a while I'm in leaders and the importance of integrating mental health into overall health there is no separation I always like to say the brain is connected to the rest of the body so there is no separation and again we're getting more and more data that if

you are depressed your outcomes for diabetes and heart disease are worse and so we have got to make sure that that everyone but again particularly those in our community talk to their physicians about this and appreciate that this is a chronic medical disorder just like any other disorder are we coming to grips with some of the conditions in which African American live upon particularly homelessness and exposure to violence well we know it we know that and then most people call those the social social determinants of health you know we've heard I think Robert Wood Johnson say you know where you live you work and you play has an effect on your health as much as your ability to see your physician and as your ability to take your medications and your ability to exercise and eat right and so we are we've identified these as particular issues but we have a long way to go in addressing those and that's why when we look at health it is more than about health

care the AMA has long standing policy in looking at these issues regarding the social determinants of health making sure that it is highlighted that we need to make sure that housing is employment and employment is important and education is important and food security is critical and having access to healthy nutritious fresh food all of those are issues that have it been amplified but we all have to work together to make sure there are solutions in place and certainly I believe you will I'm certain that you will see the AMA continue to highlight some of those issues I've read in certain publications that someone may experience bias and inequality of care and after American patients are treated different from from the majority population patients

is that something the AMA is looking at well certainly we know that there's been studies that show that that provider bias can impact health and health care certainly the AMA is committed to addressing that issue I believe we have been working on this issue it's been identified before again the work of the commission in self disparities identified that issue but as you know that like many other issues requires constant work there is no it's a journey and not a destination we will have to be constantly vigilant constantly educating everyone about that teaching that in our medical schools and in our residency training programs again constantly looking at that issue because we know that we do not want bias to impact health care so we have looked at that and we'll continue to look at that and again that problem nor actually any problem is not ours

alone to solve that's why as we solve these issues and look at this issues it requires an all-in approach but certainly physicians and the AMA will take the lead on our issues and addressing these issues from the physician's standpoint Dr. Harris does primary care providers look at your specialty as part of this total health wellness scenario absolutely absolutely the entire physician community does I would say just over the last year that I've been involved in the AMA health delegate we are many policies looking at this issue and there is and has been and a trajectory of increasing awareness of the importance of mental health again as regards overall health Dr. Patrice A. Harris MD president of the American Medical Association if you have

questions comments or suggestions ask your future in lack of medical programs email us at in lackamerica at kut.org also let us know what radio station you heard is over remember to like his own Facebook and the follow us on Twitter the views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin you can get previous programs online at kut.org until we have the opportunity again for technical producer David Averis I'm John ill Hanson junior thank you for joining us today please join us again next week CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America CDs KUT radio 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard Austin Texas 78712 this has been a production of kut radio