As a medical resident in 2023, Dr. Chantal Phillips was attending to a patient at a major Toronto hospital when the discussion turned from the patient’s health to Phillips’s hair.
Phillips, who is Black, was wearing her hair in braids. The patient made a comment about it, and Phillips felt uneasy. She tried to turn the conversation away from her hair. But her supervisor in the room, a white woman, kept the focus on Phillips. "In front of the patient she looked at it, touched it, and said, 'It looks undone to me,'" says Phillips.
"It was very uncomfortable because you know it’s a professional environment. I’m a human being, and to just reach out and touch something without permission — it almost felt like I was a spectacle or something to be examined."
Phillips was one of few Black doctors and trainees, and she questioned whether she should report the incident. But that all changed when she spoke to a senior physician, also a Black woman. Phillips confided in her and eventually reported her supervisor. The hospital handled the incident swiftly and took her seriously, she says, adding that the relationship she built with her mentor allowed her "to have the courage but also the guidance to report it."
It was situations like these that motivated the Black Physicians' Association of Ontario to fund and launch a series of remote health hubs throughout the province. The hubs are spaces where established Black physicians can meet and connect with Black medical residents or students. The goal is for those involved to share experiences and advice and to support one another's work.
Dr. Chantal Phillips (Courtesy BPAO)
The hubs focus on areas outside the GTA, where Black medical students often can’t find senior Black doctors as mentors, says Chenai Kadungure, the executive director of the BPAO. "You live in a way where you feel like you’re the only one," she says. Many medical schools have Black students but no Black residents or faculty, according to Kadungure.
The BPAO has opened hubs in Sudbury, Ottawa, London, Kingston, Durham, and Hamilton since 2023. Kadungure says that the hubs are popular and they want to expand but that doing so is difficult without buy-in from hospitals and universities. And right now, Kadungure says, few are engaging with the hubs or taking on the issues facing Black med students.
Chenai Kadungure (Courtesy BPAO)
According to a 2020 study facilitated by the BPAO, Black physicians in Ontario said race played a role in multiple career decisions, particularly when it came to where to practise medicine. About half of the 50 doctors surveyed said they wanted to work in urban areas with a higher percentage of visible minorities. Respondents said that mentorship from senior Black physicians was invaluable — but half said they struggled to access mentors in their training.
The survey also found that trainees were uncertain about what opportunities to apply for, didn’t know where to turn for daily advice, and could not find role models who understood their experience.
Dr. Mojola Omole, who works at the Scarborough Health Network, helped set up the Kingston hub. She says that, while schools may increase the number of Black students admitted to programs, they are not putting supports in place: "You’re going to burn these people out, and it’s going to lead to attrition in the future."
Research from the Canadian Medical Association Journal published this year shows a long history of Black people being excluded from medical schools in Canada. Queen’s University barred Black applicants from 1918 to 1965, and many other medical schools had informal policies that excluded Black students.
Dr. Jedrin Ngungu (Courtesy BPAO)
The BPAO opened its London health hub in March of this year in collaboration with the London Health Sciences Centre. Dr. Jedrin Ngungu, a psychiatrist at the hospital and an associate professor at Western University, runs the hub. He says that, when he joined his department at the hospital in 2017, he was the only Black physician out of 60 doctors. Ngungu says these hubs help support physicians who are being mistreated by their institutions. While he himself isn’t experiencing a negative environment at his workplace, he says, Black physicians are often discouraged from speaking about anti-Black racism. “Because of the way the structures have been set up historically, they’re not very inclusive and are not very receptive to minorities,” he says.
He says that, even as a senior physician, he’s gone to people within the hub to discuss his own experiences and to reflect. Typical topics include having patients who do not want to be treated by Black doctors or being repeatedly asked to show their credentials.
Speaking with others who understand is validating, he says: "It’s a community of physicians who share the same professional goals … and can support each other."
The BPAO hopes to continue expanding the hubs with the addition of local events. While Ngungu says the hubs need large institutions to partner with, he is also calling on more Black physicians to come forward to help support the students in mentorship roles. "We can team up together and do all this good work that needs to be done," he says.
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