One physician’s take on ‘the healer’s power’

White Privilege Conference workshop leader does racial justice training for doctors, nurses

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

Dr. Stephen Nelson

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Dr. Stephen Nelson, a pediatric hematologist at Children’s Hospital of Minnesota, had some alarming statistics for those attending his Thursday workshop “The Healer’s Power: How Whiteness Kills” at the White Privilege Conference.

For example: the infant mortality rate for black infants in Wisconsin is the same as the infant mortality rate in Syria.

And while the majority of healthcare dollars are spent in this country on patient care, about 80 percent of what affects our health are factors like the social determinants of health, including poor health literacy and fear or mistrust of the health system.

“That affects my ability to build trust with the patient,” said the pediatrician who’s helping treat about 300 patients with sickle cell disease, “but not take it personally when that family isn’t buying what I’m saying.”

Those 300 children come from families with different stories, but all have one thing in common, he said: “Not a single one is white, and at one time our whole team was.”

Together with Dr. Heather Hackman, one of the conference’s Thursday keynoters, Nelson has spent the past few years conducting racial justice training for physicians and nurses across the country.

When he heard her presentation for the first time about 10 years ago, “she changed my life speaking about white privilege,” he said. “I was embarrassed. I’d never had to think about it.”

Physicians “love our evidence-based guidelines,” he said. “We make recommendations based on research mostly done by white researchers.” The majority of the patients those researchers study are also white.

Taking the title of his workshop, “The Healer’s Power,” to heart, Nelson said he tries to take a moment just before entering an exam room “to check my power” — even on busy days. If he finds himself uncomfortable at that point, he takes a moment to ask the parent, “How do you pronounce your baby’s name again?”