WHYY
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(Tembinkosi Sikupela / Unsplash)
Heather Burris remembers growing up in a small, predominantly Black suburb on the north end of Hartford, Connecticut. Burris would go on to pursue a career in medicine, but she said her early experiences as a white girl in her hometown had an immense impact on her life’s trajectory.
“Within my small micro-community, I was a minority and was able to see the world in more of a racialized lens,” said Dr. Burris. “And so when I came into medicine [and] I would see the sort of over-representation of Black infants in the neonatal intensive care unit, I started asking questions why.”