The Office of Public Lectures presents: Unpacking Legacy: From the Personal to the Systemic with Dr. Uché Blackstock

Uché Blackstock

Founder and Chief Advisory of Advancing Health Equity; Emergency Physician; Author

Dr. Uché Blackstock is an emergency physician with over 17 years of experience and a second-generation Harvard graduate. She is the founder of Advancing Health Equity, an organization dedicated to dismantling racism in healthcare, and an MSNBC medical contributor. She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine. 

A respected thought leader on bias and racism in healthcare, Dr. Blackstock has been described by Forbes as “a growing voice” addressing unconscious bias and structural racism in medical institutions. She regularly speaks to organizations across industries about the intersection of medicine, health equity, and systemic racism. 

In Legacy, Dr. Blackstock uses her personal journey to highlight broader issues of racial injustice in medicine, offering a powerful call to action for health equity. She traces her path from childhood to medical school, from practicing physician to health equity advocate, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Inspired by her mother, who led an organization of Black women physicians in the 1980s, Dr. Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, followed in her footsteps, attending Harvard Medical School and becoming the institution’s first Black mother-daughter legacies. With only 6% of physicians in the U.S. being Black—and just 3% being Black women—the Blackstock sisters made history. 

Dr. Blackstock has spoken widely about the direct impact physician diversity has on patient care, particularly in Black communities. As one stark example, The New York Times cited a study showing that “the richest Black mothers and their babies are twice as likely to die as the richest white mothers and their babies.” 

A prolific writer, Dr. Blackstock’s Op-Eds have been featured in The Chicago Tribune, Scientific American, The Washington Post, and STAT News. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she amplified messages about racial health inequities on CNN, NPR Morning Edition, The Brian Lehrer Show, and The New York Times, while also appearing on PBS NewsHour, Essence, and panels at Afropunk and Essence Fest. 

Dr. Blackstock previously served as an associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and as faculty director for recruitment, retention, and inclusion in the Office of Diversity Affairs at NYU School of Medicine. She holds both her undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University.