Yale School of Medicine: Yale Psychiatry's Calhoun Shares Her Experiences With Racism in the Medical Field

Article by Jordan Sisson, published Feb. 17, 2020.

Full text of the article available here.

An excerpt is below:

Calhoun was among a select group of speakers - and the only resident - chosen to share their narrative stories about the patient experience and working as a doctor at the Feb. 5 Pediatric Grand Rounds.

Calhoun is a resident in the Albert J. Solnit Integrated Adult/Child Psychiatry program. She leads the Yale Resident Spanish Initiative and is co-Vice Chair of the Diversity Council of the Yale Resident Fellow Senate. Her research interests focus on the improvement of mental health outcomes in African/African diaspora and indigenous children as well as global mental health.

Calhoun’s speech at Grand Rounds, titled “Two Lenses,” centered on her experience as a woman of African descent working in the medical field.

She said the speech came as the result of a lifetime of both personal and second-hand experience with racism – and she was fed up.

“I wanted the chance to hopefully demonstrate the emotional burden of dealing with racism on a daily basis and watching it play out with my family, friends, and patients,” she said. “I also wanted other underrepresented minorities and people living with autistic family members, to feel empowered. I wanted to tell our story.”