Idaho’s medical community rallies at the Capitol to stand with Black Lives Matter
Hundreds of health care workers, students and supporters gathered at the steps of the Idaho Capitol on Saturday morning to once more support the Black Lives Matter movement.
This time, the demonstration was organized by various Idaho health practitioners and students at WWAMI (the University of Washington School of Medicine program that includes students from Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho). They collaborated with Inclusive Idaho and the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence.
With masks, signs and a lot of white coats, the crowd listened to speakers detail personal experiences both with patients of color and as a minority patient.
“When we look at health care professionals, they’re leaders in our communities. So having those voices heard and standing with the movement means a lot,” said second-year medical student Devin Gaskins, a College of Idaho and Mountain View High School graduate. “It’s a powerful ally to have with the Black community.”
Gaskins, who is African American, said that racial injustice goes beyond just police actions against the Black community.
“We have health disparities. The Black community and people of color are affected worse by COVID infection and death rates,” Gaskins said. ”The rally is to address police brutality, Black Lives Matter and social injustice, but we also want to bring in social injustice within medicine into the conversation.”
Andrea Christopher, a WWAMI grad, Boise doctor and physician advocacy teacher, was the emcee for the event and helped to introduce speakers. She also led the crowd through a moment of silence lasting 8 minutes, 46 seconds — the amount of time a white Minneapolis police officer’s knee was on George Floyd’s neck while he had Floyd pinned to the ground. Floyd, who said repeatedly that he couldn’t breathe, later died.
“One of my big passions is medical education, in part because I know what we train the next generation is what is going to continue in our health care system,” Christopher said. “In particular, the experience of the trainees here is actually a role model to me. I feel like I am learning a lot more from their ability to articulate their experience, demand change, how to ask for change in a respectable way.”
Gaskins read an essay he wrote following the death of Floyd and asked crowd members to reflect on how they can have conversations of racial inequality with their children and families.
“These events shed light on the realities of what other people face both when they try to seek health care and those of us who work in health care ... not what predominantly white people think is the truth,” said Gabrielle Davis, a respiratory therapist in the Boise area.
Davis shared personal experiences of seeking health care and of interactions with patients.
“Racism has been around much longer than COVID. COVID is just a basic cold compared to what racism is and what it’s doing to Americans,” Davis said.
Ty Waters, a resident in family medicine who soon will be practicing in Boise, said these events of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement help bring people of color together.
“There’s not a lot of minority physicians here locally, but there are encounters that happen frequently. So if there is no one we are able to talk to, it’s a pretty isolating thing,” Waters said. “So it’s a good thing to know that other physicians can either relate to you or just be empathetic.”
Vishnu Iyer, a third-year med student, said Saturday provided an opportunity to voice concerns and show support for Blacks everywhere, while feeling supported by the community and organizers.
“It’s important for me as a medical student because, as important as it is for us to learn about clinical knowledge and disease, it’s equally important for us to learn about structural inequities, because that’s a contributor to people’s disease and especially people of color,” Iyer said. “It’s really incredible to see other medical students and health professionals here, because they will be the professionals in the future to help address these inequities.”
This event was held a week after workers at medical centers across the state — including St. Luke’s, Saint Alphonsus, Saltzer Health and Primary Health Medical Group — took a moment of silence for 8 minutes, 46 seconds in solidarity against racial injustice.
Hundreds demonstrated outside the St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center, nearly all taking a knee.
This story was originally published June 20, 2020 at 1:59 PM.
