Black history and medicine

Podcast transcript

INTRO
Welcome to Docs in a Pod presented by WellMed. Over the next half hour, Docs in a Pod will educate you about the health and wellness of adults everywhere. Co-hosts Dr. Rajay Seudath and Carmenn Miles will share information to improve your health and well-being. And now here are Carmenn Miles and Dr. Rajay Seudath.

CARMENN MILES
Hello everyone and thank you so much for joining us today on the award winning Docs in a Pod presented by WellMed. I'm Carmenn Miles and I am beyond excited to jump into another great conversation today. For those of you joining us for the first time, our goal every week is to explore health and wellness topics that really matter, especially for our senior community. Our guests on the show share practical health information that helps all of us live healthier, happier lives. And maybe, just maybe, we can adopt some great practices that will impress our doctors at our next visit. So, we're thrilled you're tuning in today. Our regular listeners are likely already familiar with my great co-host today. Dr. Brooke Mobley is in the house today. She's not only been a guest on our show but has shared some pretty amazing health care tips as a co-host as well. A bit about Dr. Mobley. She graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2003. She went on to obtain her masterÕs in business administration from Saint Joseph's Hobbs School of Business and Doctor of Osteopathy from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. During medical school, she was active in the Student National Medical Association. She completed her internal medicine residency and nephrology fellowship at Christiana Care Health Services in Delaware. Dr. Mobley began her nephrology career in Lake City, Florida, where she established a renal disease clinic and served as medical director of a dialysis clinic for DaVita Kidney Care. After the birth of her daughter in 2015, she moved to Tampa, Florida, where she started her hospitalist career with Optum. She later developed a skilled nursing facility program for the Tampa and Orlando areas as a lead physician and later associate medical director. Currently, she is the medical director of post-acute care for Optum and WellMed patients for the state of Florida. While Dr. Mobley's experience runs far and wide, my favorite thing about her is that she loves to give back. She actively mentors medical students and founded a charitable organization called Purple Tears, contributing to the development of minority medical professionals. She frequently speaks at conferences on topics like cancer, medical disparities, domestic violence, and motivational topics. Welcome back to Docs in a Pod, Dr. Mobley how are you doing today?

DR. BROOKE MOBLEY
I am happy to be here. I look forward to this discussion. It is something that hits near and dear to my heart, so I look forward to all the wonderful things that our guest has to say today.

CARMENN MILES
Absolutely. Speaking of our guest, let's take a moment to introduce our guests for today's show. Nurse practitioner LaWanda Crawford grew up in North Carolina. She is the product of a family of health care providers who inspired her to pursue a career as a nurse practitioner. She chose family practice because of her passion for helping people achieve overall wellness. She, like Dr. Mobley, considers caring for others to be a privilege and an honor. In her practice, Nurse Crawford seeks to build strong connections with her patients, their loved ones, and caregivers. She's a people person and never grows weary of educating others on how best to manage their health for the long term. Nurse Crawford earned her master's in nursing leadership and management at Walden University. Additionally, she became a family nurse practitioner through Maryville University. Nurse Crawford is a foodie who loves to try new restaurants, and when she's not practicing medicine, she enjoys taking in a great movie and traveling to new destinations. Welcome to the show, Nurse Crawford, and thanks for joining us, my fellow foodie and moviegoer.

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
Yes. Thank you for having me on for today. I truly appreciate it.

CARMENN MILES
Absolutely. It's our pleasure. Tell us, what's your favorite cuisine and your all-time favorite movie?

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
My favorite cuisine. I went, last night, to a place called Carbone here in Dallas. It's an Italian restaurant. So, that's becoming one of my favorite little to go spots here lately.

CARMENN MILES
Oh, itÕs a to go spot.

DR. BROOKE MOBLEY
They also make to go items. They make pasta sauces that they sell in grocery stores if you want to take their sauces home. I cook with Carbone a lot. I've never been to the restaurant, but IÕve had their sauces and utilize them at home for my own culinary experience.

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
It is excellent. ItÕs an experience.

CARMENN MILES
Well, the producers and I are in Texas, so we'll have to look that up. It sounds amazing. All right, last question about travel. I'm going to ask you three options. Do you prefer a quick road trip to a quaint little town, a trip into the mountains, or the warmth of a great beach getaway? What's your choice?

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
The warmth of a great beach getaway.

CARMENN MILES
That's my kind of girl.

DR. BROOKE MOBLEY
I can get that with a quaint drive. I could drive 45 minutes and feel like IÕm on another island.

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
So jealous.

CARMENN MILES
Oh, you're so spoiled. You Florida woman. Well, thanks Nurse Crawford, for hanging out with us today. We have a great topic today, especially since we have a little bit of what we like to call a magical situation going on across the board today from our producer, Cherese Pendleton, to our co-host and guests. But today, we're honoring Black History Month with a conversation that's close to all of our hearts. The legacy, the brilliance, the resilience of Black physicians and scientists and even healers who've helped modern medicine. So, we're shining a light on the pioneers whose contributions continue to save lives, guide our practices, and inspire the next generation of clinicians. Nurse Crawford, this is a big topic and honestly, one that deserves way more than a single episode, but we're going to do our best to highlight some giants whose shoulders we all stand on. I know that you stand on the shoulders of some family members in the in the health care industry. So, tell us a bit about your family background and why this conversation matters to you personally and even professionally.

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
Like you mentioned in my bio, I come from a family of caregivers. Coming from my great grandmother, my grandmother, aunts, that is just something that we've always done is service our community. My grandmother was a live in maid that helped to take care of different multi generations in a family. Starting off with that little, small thing and then also then being the mom of the neighborhood where if you were ever hungry and needed a plate, you can always come there and get a warm meal. If there was some kind of ailment, my grandmother was kind of that staple in the neighborhood. So, from there, I have a family full of nurses. It's just various occupations in the medical profession. So, that was something dear to me that I wanted to continue in my profession.

CARMENN MILES
Great lineage there. Very good. Thank you for sharing that. We'll take just one moment to welcome those who may have just joined us. You're listening to the award winning Docs in a Pod presented by WellMed. I'm Carmenn Miles, alongside our illustrious co-host, Dr. Brooke Mobley. Our podcast is available wherever you catch your podcasts and also available on the radio in several Texas and Florida markets. We're talking with our special guest today, nurse practitioner LaWanda Crawford, about black history and medicine. Black innovators have shaped everything from surgery to public health to our medical ethics, and many did it, Nurse Crawford, while facing some pretty ginormous barriers that would have stopped most of us dead in our tracks. So, there were and still are some pretty high hills to climb. I really want to hear from both you, Nurse Crawford, and certainly our co-host Dr. Mobley, who are some of the trailblazers in medicine that helped guide and shape your career still today? We definitely have Dr. Rebecca Crumpler. She was the first black woman physician in the US. There's Dr. Charles Drew with blood banking. So, I'm just wondering if there are any in history that stand out to you and that helped shape you still today the way you approach medicine?

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
I think Rebecca Crumpler because she was the first one to write the medical textbook. Just knowing that education and having a reference point to where you can always go back to make sure that you are doing your assessments and things like that. But then, a prudent way, the fact that she had that knowledge to go ahead and put that down at that early on, like in the 1800s, I think that's just phenomenal.

CARMENN MILES
Fantastic. What about you, Dr. Mobley? Anybody in particular stand out for you?

DR. BROOKE MOBLEY
This is probably going to be weird for some people, but I'm a person who loves representation. I am the daughter of educators. Both my mother and my father were educators, high school and elementary school, and both first generation college grad. So, when I think about who impacted me or who showed me that I can be a doctor more relatable and more recent was, and this may be weird to people, it was The Cosby Show. Being a girl from Philadelphia, seeing this black man delivering babies, still being the family man that I saw with my dad was what showed me that I could be a doctor. ItÕs sad that we have to use fictional characters, or we had to use fictional characters to help determine or encourage us to be in certain professions. But now I am being that for somebody else in real life. In my clinical practice, I was a nephrologist before becoming a mother, and I had the honor in working with Velma Scantlebury, who was the first African American female transplant surgeon. I have done 3 to 4 kidney transplants with her. She was like a second mom to me in Delaware. We still stay in contact, and she showed me a lot, not only about transplant medicine with kidneys, but just with health care disparities, because kidney disease is something that affects African American people out of proportion to other races. So, not only was I learning something culturally, but I was able to be a part of seeing my people get kidney transplants and a time where they weren't getting them as often as their majority counterparts.

CARMENN MILES
Absolutely. Fast forward to today, and we see so many black physicians leading in cardiology, oncology and all sorts of medical innovations. But we also know, like you said, representation still matters. Patients do better when they feel seen, when they feel heard and when they're understood. Unfortunately, when patients don't feel heard or seen, a lot of patients will forsake their help. I'm going to ask you a question just before we go into the break. Do you think we have done a good job of alleviating some of these types of concerns over the years? What are your thoughts? We're going to take a quick break and come back and answer that question. Please stay with us as we continue this great discussion on black history and medicine right here on Docs in a Pod by WellMed.

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CARMENN MILES
We're back with co-host Dr. Brooke Mobley and our guest today, nurse practitioner LaWanda Crawford. I'm Carmenn Miles, and we are celebrating Black History Month through the lens of medicine by honoring legacy and really connecting that legacy of history to today's health realities. We kind of touched on disparities. We'd be missing a big part of the story if we didn't talk about disparities. Black communities still face higher rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension and even heart disease. We sometimes lack access to preventive care. But the good news is we have two medical professionals with us today who know what works and they work at this daily through building trust, community partnerships and mainly patient education. They take the time to listen. Nurse Crawford, are there still disparities and barriers that exist today and how as WellMed and similar organizations, if you will, working to close some of those gaps?

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
I think that there are still those disparities there. Though it has gotten better over the years and we're seeing more black doctors and nurses, I think that presence does matter in the community. I think that the people that we serve want to see people that look like them in these leadership roles because they feel a connection. They feel as if we can identify more with some of the things that they're going through, whether it be health, economic, social, things like that. So, I think there's a connection there. Though the disparities are getting better, it can still be a lot more improved than what it is now. We still have a long road to travel to try to continue to bridge those gaps.

DR. BROOKE MOBLEY
I'll piggyback on that and I'll say that, currently in 2025, I know weÕre in the beginning of 2026, but statistics always lags. 5.7 to 6.7% of physicians are black. Now, that is better than five years ago when it was 2 to 3%, but in the United States, black people make up 13% of the population. So, that tells us that there's still a disparity despite making progress. Studies have shown that it's not just a black thing. I say that by saying studies show that patients have better care and are more compliant and have better outcomes when their physician looks like them. Asian patients do better if they have Asian doctors. Hispanic patients do better if they have Hispanic doctors. Black patients do better if they have black doctors. Female patients do better if they have female doctors. So, it's not just a black thing. It's a relatable thing. There are a lot of things culturally that people don't understand if they're not a part of the culture. Being a kidney doctor, I have changed many patients lives who have seen white counterparts because traditionally kidney doctors were white men, and so they were telling them stuff like cut out sodium. So, the patient shake their head and they say yes, because they don't want to feel unintelligent by saying, I don't know what sodium is. Then I would come in and be their physician and I would say, hey, you need to cut out salt. And they would be like, why didn't they say that? I'm like, I understand, but just cut out salt. If you look on the back of packages, if this is sodium, that's the salt content. Decrease your salt content to 1,200 milligrams a day if you're somebody who has high blood pressure. Just one little word changed many of my patients compliance and their ability to be preventative in their high blood pressure so that they don't want to renal disease. In the Asian community, it is disrespectful for you to look at somebody of high stature in the eyes. But if you're American and someone isn't looking you in the eyes, you feel like they're disrespecting you. But an Asian doctor who understands those cultures knows that this is a form of respect, so they're not offended and they're not forcing the patient to look at them in the eyes. In the Hispanic community, most of the children make the decisions, despite the patient being totally oriented or having the capacity to make decisions. But you have to understand that culturally to know, hey, talk directly to the family members because they're the ones, one, who are probably translating for you and two, that's who the parents are looking for advice. Fortunately for minority physicians, we tend to go above and beyond to find out all these cultural things, so it's easier for me to relate to other cultures because I understand what it's like not to be understood. For my majority physicians, they don't understand that, so they tend not to go above and beyond so they can understand other cultures or being a part of the community that they're working in, despite not living in that community. So, I will say that there are a lot of people working hard in the majority population who understand it's important accepting minorities into medical school, accepting them into residency programs, accepting them into nurse practitioner school, physical therapy school, hiring them as medical directors and hospital administration. So, there are advocates in the majority populations, but it's still not enough. We all need to do more. Just like racism, it is wonderful when minorities stand up. But we are the minority. The biggest impact is going to come from our advocates on the majority side.

CARMENN MILES
My goodness, I feel like we need to pass the Sunday offering tray for that bit of knowledge you just dropped, Dr. Mobley. That's fantastic.

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
But you know, even when you have all of that and you have that connection with your patients, that's how you can manage your chronic diseases. That's how you can get your preventative care going. That's how they can get their immunizations if anything is needed. You're having a long term effect just by making 1 or 2 changes, just like with the verbiage and the salt and the sodium. So, you can have some major long term effects just having that connection with your patients.

CARMENN MILES
Absolutely. Building a relationship with your primary care provider, knowing someone you can relate to and speak to, you're not afraid to ask questions of is absolutely the most important thing, right? You said something, Nurse Crawford, we can't touch on this enough. The importance of preventive care. Making sure that we're getting that in the black community and the early screening. So, what are some of the numbers that we need to know that would come out of taking advantage of preventive care.

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
I think for hypertension and blood pressure, you want to make sure that your top number stays below 140 and then your bottom number stays below 90. I always make it a point that when I'm talking to my patients and when I'd say stuff like low sodium or no salt, I also make it a point to list those foods like broth, Chinese food, peanuts, crackers, things like that. I think once I give them those real time examples, then they're able to relate it. Oh, well, I may not add salt to my food, but it's coming to me already prepared with it in there. You want to make sure that your heart rate is between 80 and 100. You want to make sure that you're keeping up on all these numbers, you're getting your yearly lab work to get those numbers monitor to make sure everything is within range. Often your lab work can be a precursor to something else that's going on. If you get that done on a more routine basis, you're more likely to able to pick up something that might be subtly changing and could be a way to prevent something from becoming a major problem.

DR. BROOKE MOBLEY
I want to piggyback on that in saying that a lot of times people think of health care disparities as underprivileged communities, but unfortunately, it's hitting people of all classes and it's hitting people of all money income things. Serena Williams almost died giving birth because she was a black woman. They know who she was. She got lots of money. Along with those preventative things, it's important for minority communities to know what cancer screenings they should get and when they should start getting it. I had a sister who passed away four years ago from cancer. She originally was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was a VP of a health care company. She is college educated. They were so focused on her breast cancer treatment that she did not have her proper colon cancer screening. She should have had a screening at 40 years old, because our mother had pre-cancerous cells at 50 and had a colon resection. She should have had a colonoscopy at 40. That did not happen. She turned 50 during her breast cancer treatment and they still did not do a colonoscopy. After being treated completely for breast cancer, my sister died in three months from stage four colon cancer. This is a woman who was educated, who had great health insurance, who made six figures and knew a lot about medicine, but didn't understand when she should have been tested for a colonoscopy and unfortunately died from something that she may not have died from had they done that colonoscopy at the age of 40. That's why I take health care disparities, education, preventative medication, and educating not only patients, but health care providers the importance of treating your minority populations just as well, if not better than your majority populations.

CARMENN MILES
Yeah, the education is so key. Are there community resources out there that can help to support wellness in the Black community, especially in such a scenario as this, Dr. Mobley?

DR. BROOKE MOBLEY
Yes. NAACP always has health initiatives. Different sororities and fraternities. My sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated has health initiatives every year. But so do the other divine nine. You can always Google Òminority resources and health careÓ for your local areas to get hotlines and things of that nature. You can talk to your physicians or health care providers in your primary care offices to see if they have any additional resources. If they don't, you should tell them that they should. We have to hold everybody accountable if we really want to see change.

CARMENN MILES
Fantastic. Nurse Crawford, if you could just tell us one thing quickly that every listener can do this month, Black History Month, to improve their health in just 15 seconds, if you will.

LAWANDA CRAWFORD, NP
Exercise more. Get out there and move.

CARMENN MILES
Absolutely.

DR. BROOKE MOBLEY
American Heart Association 20 minutes of aerobic cardio workout 3 to 4 times a week. You can do that in commercial breaks of a 60 minute show. Anybody can get 20 minutes of heart health.

CARMENN MILES
Fantastic. Thank you both for all this magic today. We are out of time. Again, thank you for joining us for this episode of Docs in a Pod presented by WellMed. Don't be a stranger. Subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode. Sharing is caring. Share this with others invested in living a happy, healthier lifestyle. Remember, you can listen to Docs in a Pod wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget, you can also catch us on the radio in several Texas and Florida markets. Until next time, stay well!

OUTRO
Executive producer for Docs in a Pod is Dan Calderon. The producer is Cherese Pendleton. Thank you for listening to Docs in a Pod presented by WellMed. Be sure and listen next week to Docs in a Pod presented by WellMed.

DISCLAIMER
This transcript is generated using a podcast editing tool; there may be small differences between this transcript and the recorded audio content.

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