LibraryGuides: Presidential Lecture Series: 2/23 Damon Tweedy, MD

"A big part of the solution is discarding your assumptions and connecting with each patient as a person. Race, while certainly a powerful influence, by itself doesn't guarantee a human connection any more than any other factor like geography, height, or handedness. It is up to us, as doctors, to find the commonalities and respect the differences between us and our patients. In that way, we can understand what they value, how best to communicate with them, and how to arrive at treatment plans that improve their health while respecting their wishes. This approach is often called cultural competence, but after years of medical practice, it seems to me more like common sense."

― Damon Tweedy, Black Man in a White Coat

About the Speaker: Damon Tweedy

Damon Tweedy

Damon Tweedy is a graduate of Duke University School of Medicine. He is an associate professor of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine and staff physician at the Durham Veteran Affairs Health System. He has published articles about race and medicine in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Raleigh News & Observer, as well as in various medical journals. He lives outside Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, with his family.

Photo Credit: Stocks Photography

Damon Tweedy: The Event

Duke University psychiatrist Damon Tweedy, MD, urged Creighton students and professors to embrace an ongoing national journey toward racial equity in health care during a Presidential Lecture in Phoenix. Read a recap article on Tweedy's lecture.

Tweedy as Author

Black Man in a White Coat by Damon Tweedy A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*ONE OFTIME MAGAZINE'S TOP TEN NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR ALIBRARY JOURNALBEST BOOK SELECTION*A BOOKLIST EDITORS' CHOICE BOOK SELECTION One doctor's passionate and profound memoir of his experience grappling with race, bias, and the unique health problems of black Americans When Damon Tweedy begins medical school, he envisions a bright future where his segregated, working-class background will become largely irrelevant. Instead, he finds that he has joined a new world where race is front and center. The recipient of a scholarship designed to increase black student enrollment, Tweedy soon meets a professor who bluntly questions whether he belongs in medical school, a moment that crystallizes the challenges he will face throughout his career. Making matters worse, in lecture after lecture the common refrain for numerous diseases resounds, "More common in blacks than in whites." Black Man in a White Coatexamines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. As Tweedy transforms from student to practicing physician, he discovers how often race influences his encounters with patients. Through their stories, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of many health problems in the black community. These issues take on greater meaning when Tweedy is himself diagnosedwith a chronic disease far more common among black people. In this powerful, moving, and deeply empathic book, Tweedy explores the challenges confronting black doctors, and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately seeking a way forward to better treatment and more compassionate care.
ISBN: 9781250105042
Publication Date: 2016-09-06

Discover More at the Creighton University Libraries: Damon Tweedy

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Presidential Lecture Series