Dr. KaNisha L. Hall is a board-certified anesthesiologist, sexologist, addiction medicine counselor, published author and media personality. She is a proud Howard University alumna and HBCU advocate.
What should we be doing better to trust Black doctors right now during COVID?
I’m here to say that there are things that I thought I knew that I may not know now, but I’m very diligent about the information that I received from research papers, staying in contact with other colleagues in other parts of this country, and the world. I’m thankful for my Howard University College of Medicine alumni, where we’ve been able to pull our information and experience from practice and research to give the best answers possible to people that I love because I don’t just see patients as numbers. These [people] are somebody’s mother, father, sister, and brother. Be aware that I’m no superhero. I put on my white coat, not a cape. I’m human. The information is ever-changing and I’m not afraid to say I don’t know. But I’m always working diligently to bring good information to my community.
As a physician and anesthesiologist, what are you seeing with this virus that has continued to stay present and really hasn’t let up on our community?
We [have] got to start educating. We are beyond COVID-19. And we really need to change that nomenclature. We are in COVID 2021, COVID 2022. This is not the same virus we were dealing with. I think as hard as we are pushing to follow the science, people need to understand what science is. Science is evolving trains of thought as we get more information. And that’s what I tell people because I never want to seem hypocritical. I have to change my thought process, I have to change my message as I get new information. There are a lot of people that I talked to that are not willing to continually get shot after shot after shot when they know they are seeing people that have been boosted that eventually do get COVID.
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