Published: 02 October 2024
It’s Black History Month, and we’re celebrating our Black excellence, showcasing the contributions and achievements of our Black staff, students and alumni.
Contributing to the St George's community
"I am Sharon; a final year medical student at City St Georges. However I try to not attribute my identity to solely being a medical student. Instead, I like to describe myself as a curious, ambiverted artist who dabbles in tennis and loves exploring new places.
One of the new things I set out to explore last year was being President of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society in 2023-24. I worked alongside our second President, final year medical student Anika Khair."
“Presidenting” was a role that I didn’t take lightly, as not only did it provide me with an opportunity to lead a team, but it also enabled me to carry the direction of the society into exploring areas of Obstetrics and Gynaecology that our society members where interested in.
- Sharon, final year medical student and previous President of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society -
Addressing Healthcare Disparities: Improving Pregnancy Outcomes for Black Women
"In particular, I have been curious about the statistic that black and brown women are more likely to die in childbirth in the UK. Why is this? And what is being done to rectify this?
Thus, within my society, we organised two events to attempt to understand this topic some more.
The first event was an in-person panel of four mothers sharing their most recent maternity experiences.
The second event was an online panel with an obstetric doctor, a midwife, and a mother sharing what they think, from their experiences, could be causing the racial disparities in maternal mortality, and their proposed solutions. There were a plethora of causes provided, most of which can categorised into:
- systemic injustices
- unconscious biases.
Moving onto solutions, feedback from both events showed that medical students found our two sessions really insightful, which led to me, alongside with Margot Turner lobbying for these conversational lectures and maternal experiences to be a part of our medical curriculum.
- Sharon, final year medical student and previous President of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society -
Thankfully, this request was accepted by the kind P Year 0&G lead and obstetrician Dr Suruchi Pandey, and now myself, Margot and Katie Campion currently run a quarterly ‘Racial Disparities in Maternal Health’ lecture to all fourth year medical students, where we invite black and brown mothers into the university to share their maternity stories & directly teach the students what optimal maternity care looks like for them.
In the feedback from our first session, majority of students stated an increased confidence in building trust and rapport with black mothers; which is essential in optimising their maternal care."
With these lectures, I believe that we can positively influence the way the next generation of doctors interact with Black and Asian mothers in future, and reduce the amount maternal deaths due to unconscious biases.
- Sharon, final year medical student and previous President of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society -
Celebrating Black History Month
I believe that it is important to mark Black History Month as it provided an opportunity to amplify the contributions and achievements of black individuals who would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
- Sharon, final year medical student and previous President of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society -
"Of course, the better scenario is the successes of black individuals being noticed all year round.
Reclaiming Narratives is a good theme to have this year for Black History Month as it re-establishes ownership of our stories and experiences, and counteracts performativity by organisations looking for the quickest, cheapest and often most disingenuous ways of addressing racism and unconscious biases."
Explore our Black History Month events, resources and initiatives.