Saunders, a professor of surgery, microbiology, and immunology at Duke University School of Medicine, has been an integral part of DHVI since 2014. His focus sharpened during the tumultuous years of the COVID-19 pandemic, pondering whether a single vaccine could provide protection from the undulating waves of viral variants.
Courtesy Wilson Hayes(NEW YORK) Weeks of shoulder pain landed a reluctant Whitney Nichols in urgent care. As a previously healthy 24-year-old Black woman, she pleaded for additional testing to uncover the cause of her pain. As a last resort, the doctor ordered a CT scan of her chest. The result, blood clots in both of her lungs.
Even after this seemingly scary diagnosis and after being transferred to a hospital, Nichols said she felt dismissed when a doctor told her she would be fine.
Nichols, now 29 and a graduating medical student, reflected that these interactions with dismissive doctors made her feel "so alone in that space" and unsafe.
But Nichols said that night, everything changed when a Black physician, Dr. Erika Walker, walked into the room. Walker explained the blood clots were serious but treatable. Walker advised Nichols to stop taking her estrogen-based birth control, which can increase the risk of blood clots, and prescribed medication that would break up
Courtesy Wilson Hayes(NEW YORK) Weeks of shoulder pain landed a reluctant Whitney Nichols in urgent care. As a previously healthy 24-year-old Black woman, she pleaded for additional testing to uncover the cause of her pain. As a last resort, the doctor ordered a CT scan of her chest. The result, blood clots in both of her lungs.
Even after this seemingly scary diagnosis and after being transferred to a hospital, Nichols said she felt dismissed when a doctor told her she would be fine.
Nichols, now 29 and a graduating medical student, reflected that these interactions with dismissive doctors made her feel "so alone in that space" and unsafe.
But Nichols said that night, everything changed when a Black physician, Dr. Erika Walker, walked into the room. Walker explained the blood clots were serious but treatable. Walker advised Nichols to stop taking her estrogen-based birth control, which can increase the risk of blood clots, and prescribed medication that would break up