In a sunlit office far removed from the sterile corridors of Westchester Medical Center, Dr. Makeda Dawkins speaks with the measured cadence of someone who has learned to balance urgency with precision. As a gastroenterologist who completed both her internal medicine residency and chief residency at Westchester before pursuing her current fellowship, she has spent years honing this equilibrium.
“If your heart is not in it, it’ll be very difficult for you to stick with the course,” she says, leaning forward slightly. “Make sure that whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it for the right reasons, and your heart is in it, and your passion is in it.”
Finding purpose in medicine
Dr. Dawkins comes from what she describes as “a very long line of individuals in healthcare” — her mother was a nurse, as were many family members, with some who became doctors. But her own journey began with a more personal mission.
“At a young age, I always had an interest in science, pharmaceuticals, physiology,” she explains. “I found that when certain people fell ill, the most useful thing I could do was interpret the medical literature, interpret what they’re going through when they’re seeing their physicians.”
This familial duty gradually transformed into an intellectual pursuit and eventually a career path. The evolution feels natural when she describes it a seamless progression from helping loved ones understand medical terminology to becoming the expert in the white coat herself.
The weight of representation
When asked about her experience as a Black woman in residency, Dr. Dawkins doesn’t hesitate to name the phenomenon that shaped much of her experience.
“Imposter syndrome is real,” she says. “It was difficult for me at first to work in hospitals where I didn’t see people who looked like me as physicians, to navigate spaces in rooms where there was no one that I could assimilate with or connect with on a racial level.”
This absence created what she calls “a comfortability factor” the sense of being perpetually out of place, of having to justify one’s presence in spaces where no one shares your background or experiences.
“I felt like, if I’m going to be the only African American Black person in this room, I need to know my information to a T, I need to be on my P’s and Q’s, I need to be sharp,” she recounts. “It pushed me to study harder and be better at every turn, because I knew that I was a representative of my culture and people who looked like me.”
The weight of this responsibility became both burden and motivation a constant reminder that her individual success or failure would reflect on an entire community.
The cultural interpreter
Perhaps the most striking challenge Dr. Dawkins describes is the experience of being the sole cultural translator between patients of color and a predominantly white medical establishment.
“A lot of the times patients would say things or do things that I would interpret in our cultural context as something to be quote unquote of the norm, or very common,” she explains. “And when you’re behind the scenes and you’re having conversations, there’s some people who don’t understand it, and they’re mistaking it for something different.”
She provides an example from psychiatry, where cultural context can dramatically affect diagnosis and treatment.
“If you have a patient of Caribbean descent, and they’re telling you Caribbean people can be very, very proud people, and they’re telling you what they’ve accomplished and what their children accomplished. That’s a sense of pride for them. But if you don’t understand that, and you’re treating them, you may interpret it as someone being boastful or someone telling fallacies.”
Finding her voice to advocate for patients across these cultural divides was, as she puts it, “the most difficult part along the journey.”
A day in the life
For those considering medicine, Dr. Dawkins offers a clear-eyed portrait of a resident’s typical day a marathon that begins around 6:30 a.m. with handoffs from overnight staff and ends, “if you’re good at managing your time,” around 5 p.m. More realistically, she admits, “you probably leave at 7.”
The day includes patient rounds, interdisciplinary meetings with nurses, social workers and physical therapists, educational lectures, and endless documentation. Lunch is an aspirational concept, something that “depends on how you manage your time.”
During COVID, when Dr. Dawkins began her residency in the ICU, these already demanding days became even more grueling, both physically and emotionally.
“During those times you really sit with yourself and think, am I doing this for the right reason? It’s getting very difficult,” she recalls. “You have emotional demands, physical demands, academic demands, but you can overcome all of those things if you’re doing it for the right reasons.”
The mentor’s guidance
For Dr. Dawkins, the support that made these challenges manageable came in the form of mentorship, particularly from Dr. Alyson Myers, an endocrinologist at Montefiore.
“She was very influential in me pursuing the next steps,” Dr. Dawkins explains. “Everyone’s telling me it’s going to be so difficult, and I should just be happy that I’ve made it this far and kind of cut my losses, and she really pushed me to be better and want better for myself.”
This guidance became especially important after completing her internal medicine residency, when she faced the decision of whether to pursue further specialty training.
“Having mentors and having sponsors is so important, not only as a female, but as a Black female in these spaces, because you need mentorship. You need guidance. You need to know how to navigate these rooms and how to present yourself as someone who’s interested in academic medicine.”
A balance of life and medicine
Throughout her training, Dr. Dawkins developed strategies to protect her wellbeing amid the demands of hospital life.
“In training during COVID, I really emphasized my mental health and my physical health,” she says. “When you’re working 6 to 6 or 6 to 8, you have to be able to physically meet those requirements.”
She learned to separate her hospital experiences from her home life a boundary that didn’t come naturally at first.
“During my residency and during my intern year it was very hard for me to not bring the hospital home with me,” she admits. “In the beginning, I thought, can I do this? Is this natural? Is it right? Is it acceptable? But I’ve found a way to say that certain things happen in certain spheres of your life, and if you carry it with you it gets very, very heavy.”
Advice for the next generation
For young Black students considering medicine, Dr. Dawkins offers practical wisdom: “Find the learning point in every opportunity, and find the opportunity in every experience.”
She recommends observing different physicians’ teaching styles and taking elements from each to form your own approach. More pragmatically, she emphasizes the importance of carefully selecting letter writers who truly know you, starting personal statements early, and leveraging community resources.
“Sometimes there’s a feeling of wanting to do things on your own… It’s not true at all,” she insists. “Sometimes it does take a village, and there is no shame in using your support system. That’s what they’re there for.”
As Dr. Dawkins continues her fellowship in gastroenterology and hepatology, specializing in digestive tract disorders from the esophagus to the liver, she carries forward the lessons of her residency: the value of representation, the importance of cultural understanding, and the necessity of finding meaning in medicine’s daily demands.
“Medicine is always going to be difficult,” she says. “But you can overcome all of those things if your heart is in it.”
