How do you address the disparity in care for Black men?
There’s no doubt in our current social and political and economic climate of the world that we recognize [there are] health care disparities out there. I saw it as a duty that I knew 20-30 years ago, that to become a Black surgeon in urology meant that I could have a role, particularly in the arena surrounding prostate cancer that so disproportionately affects Black men. We know that 1 in every 9 men, in general, will get prostate cancer in his lifetime.
Among Black men it is 1 in 6. So you can see there is a difference. They are at a higher rate of having prostate cancer. Believe it or not, the mortality rate that is dying from prostate cancer is two and a half fold among Black men compared to [their] counterparts. So, this is all to say that even back then going through medical school, I realized that one of the areas that I thought I could have impact in was urology. Urology had to do with men’s health, prostate diseases, prostate cancer, I even had that kind of revelation back then that I could get into a career that could hopefully bring about some of this.
Why is research important?
Medical research seems like such a daunting word. You know, when we say that word “research” we all kind of think back to our years iin high school and college and it’s like, oh, man, I don’t know if I can even handle research. Research means that if you’ve got an inquisitive mind, and you think that something is a question that needs an answer, we can carry out some sort of investigation to address a problem that exists.
Why is it that Black men are more affected? Why is it that Black men die of this? We need to get some answers. And we need to figure out how we can make sure we save the lives of our Black men. So, research is fundamental to this. Research means that you’re not just going to accept whatever happens and the world goes on. No, we need to step up and say we’re going to ask them questions, we’re going to do some investigative work to try and figure out what we can do to make differences out there and save our Black men’s lives.
