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Doctors Must Stop Tuning Out Black Women. It Happened To Me, As A Pregnant OB-GYN.

The rate of women dying during childbirth surged by 40% in the US. Here's why.

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I was a thousand miles from home and 25 weeks pregnant when I started having abdominal pain.

I am an obstetrician-gynecologist. I knew that I needed to get evaluated. And what's more, I was traveling for a medical conference, surrounded by hundreds of other OB-GYNs. I confided in a few close colleagues, and they all agreed: You need to go to a hospital. Though I was far from New Orleans and my personal care team, I went to a hospital.

What happened next made starkly clear to me how there's such a staggering disparity in outcomes for pregnant Black women in America.

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This was my first pregnancy, and I was scared. On my way to the hospital, I mentally cataloged my symptoms to figure out what could be going on, and I tried to console myself that it was unlikely anything was seriously wrong. After all, I thought, "you're healthy. You don't have risk factors for preterm labor."

Even so, the terrifying possibility that I was having early contractions loomed – and at only 25 weeks along, I did not want to even think about what that could mean.

At the hospital, I described my pains and admitted my fears that I was contracting. As they hooked me up to the monitors, a sense of relief flooded over me. The screen showed the baby, who looked fine. But was I fine? Was my body contracting?

But they didn't move on to evaluating me for labor contractions. After all, I know how to rule out labor – I'm an OB-GYN. They weren't checking my cervix. Why? I silently wondered, and I bit my tongue against giving these doctors instructions.

I was still having pain, and I told them so – hoping to prod them into further action. But they still didn't check my cervix or for any other signs of labor. They never did the things I would have done if a patient came into my triage with these complaints. They told me my diagnosis was "colonic inertia," a fancy way of saying constipation. I didn't think this was an appropriate evaluation.

Even so, I didn't want to push. I didn't want to be "that person." I did not want to be the "angry Black woman."

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They released me, and I never said a word. I got on a plane to go home, still in pain and still scared, but trying to believe that it was OK.

Back in New Orleans at the end of that day, I met with a maternal fetal medicine specialist at my home hospital where I work, Ochsner Health. She heard my concerns and started with an abdominal ultrasound.

Trying not to scare me, she said, "Are you OK if I do a vaginal ultrasound? I don't see your cervix."

My cervix should have been 25 millimeters, but it had shortened to merely 9 mm. I was in danger of spontaneous preterm birth. I was immediately put on bed rest and given steroids and progesterone to help me hold the baby. A few days later, my body calmed down and I moved to partial bed rest.

Ultimately, everything was OK. I still delivered early at 36 weeks, but I gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby boy. Because I had been on steroids and because of other interventions ahead of time, my son did not have to spend any time in the neonatal intensive care unit.

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I can't help but think about my experience. I tried to lead the clinicians to an appropriate evaluation, but what I was trying to politely get across was not heard. And I didn't use my own voice any louder and I didn't make demands because of the stereotype I did not want to fulfill – that of the angry Black woman.

I put my son's life and my own life in danger because of politeness, and I am remorseful about that to this day.

According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,205 people died of maternal causes in 2021, a 40% increase from the previous year.

And for Black women, the rates are astonishing. Black women are nearly three times more likely to die after childbirth than white women. In general, the maternal outcomes for Black women are worse than their white counterparts.

Even when you adjust for social and economic factors, Black women have worse outcomes. The pregnancy-related mortality ratio for a Black woman with a college degree is nearly twice that of a white woman with less than a high school diploma.

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Black women go unheard by doctors. We often don't feel comfortable advocating for ourselves, and when we do, we are not believed. Maybe we speak up once, or twice, or even three times. But when a person isn't believed over and over, they stop speaking up. They start to doubt themselves until they are silenced.

Kira Johnson bled to death after a cesarean section to deliver her second son. Both she and her husband, Charles, told the hospital staff that something was wrong, but they weren't listened to. Charles kept asking the doctors to check on his wife, but his pleas went unheard. Kira died 12 hours after the C-section.

Shalon Irving, a public health epidemiologist focused on health equity, died just three weeks after giving birth via C-section. She knew something wasn't right: jumping blood pressure, leg pain, headaches, fatigue, rapid weight gain over a couple of days. She knew she needed help, but the doctors kept sending her home. It was at home that Shalon died from complications of high blood pressure.

The same thing could have happened to tennis star Serena Williams, had she not demanded that her physician give her a CAT scan and heparin.

Tennis champion Serena Williams holds her daughter, Olympia, and the ASB Classic trophy in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2020.

Serena knew she was at high risk for blood clots. She had given birth via C-Section, and the staff didn't want to put her on blood thinners because of that, but Serena knew something wasn't right with her body. Thank goodness, she was secure enough in herself to say, I'm going to speak until somebody here takes me seriously, because when the staff finally scanned her, they discovered deadly blood clots in her lungs. In one week, Serena had four back-to-back lifesaving surgeries. She survived to be a mother to her beautiful daughter, Olympia.

It's not that doctors and nurses are purposefully trying to hurt Black mothers. This is happening because of implicit bias. Whether they know it or not, the American medical community has internalized a number of fallacies about Black women: We feel less pain. We're overly loud and demanding. We're faking it to get access to pain meds.

And the result is that Black women are not believed. Black voices are tuned out.

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In 2021, Charles Johnson and I testified before Congress on the Black maternal health crisis in America. Advocates like Serena, Charles and I are working to help our legislators understand that too many Black women have lost their lives during childbirth or from childbirth complications.

While our legislators and doctors in America work on finding solutions through regulations and medical practice, here is what I want Black women to know: If you feel like something is wrong, something is wrong. You deserve to be evaluated. You deserve to be heard. And if you are not being heard, you deserve to seek care somewhere else.

You know your body – don't ever let anyone tell you that you don't.

Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell, a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist, is an associate professor for Ochsner Health in New Orleans. She also serves as the medical director of the Louisiana Perinatal Quality Collaborative and Pregnancy Associated Mortality Review for the Louisiana Department of Health. She was a featured speaker at the White House Maternal Health Day of Action.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Doctors must stop tuning out Black women. It happened to me, as a pregnant OB-GYN.

OB-GYN 'crossed So Many Ethical Boundaries,' Says Patient At Hearing

During a hearing on allegations of misconduct against a Las Vegas OB-GYN, a former patient described how the doctor tried to get her to model nude and the doctor called an adult film actress as a defense witness.

A woman identified as "Patient B" testified during the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners hearing that Dr. George Chambers, her doctor for seven years, inquired in 2018 if she would like to appear naked in stock photos for advertisements for his cosmetic gynecology specialty in exchange for $1,000.

"He asked me if I had ever posed nude before," the woman said. "I told him that I hadn't and wondered why he would ask me a question like that and then he told me about how he asked some of his patients to be models for him."

"I knew right off the bat that it was incredibly inappropriate and crossed so many ethical boundaries," she said. "I certainly didn't say yes. I just wanted it to be over."

Chambers is accused by the board of disruptive behavior; engaging in conduct intended to deceive; failure to maintain accurate medical records; engaging in conduct that violates the trust of a patient and exploits the relationship with the patient for financial or other personal gain; continual failure to practice medicine properly; and disreputable conduct.

The board's administrative law complaint alleges that he "exploited his relationships with patients and violated patients' trust by engaging in sexual improprieties that constitute sexual misconduct."

Much of the complaint centers on claims from three of his former patients, known as Patient A, Patient B and Patient C to protect their privacy.

On Tuesday, Patient A said that in her only appointment with Chambers, he used a slang term to describe how he tried to insert his entire hand into her vagina, which she said caused her lasting pain and that she regarded as sexual assault.

Chambers strongly denied both using the slang term and inserting his hand in that way.

He complained Wednesday that Patient B was making "salacious" statements and "grandstanding" and it was "going to be a 'he said, she said'" situation.

After Patient B was excused, the board conducted a lengthy interview with Dr. Richard Rafael, who retired in 2018 after 32 years as an obstetrician and gynecologist in Reno.

Rafael, a witness for the board, said that from his analysis of the case, he doesn't believe that Chambers had committed malpractice or sexual assault, but that "his behavior fulfilled the definition of sexual misconduct and sexual inappropriateness" with the three complainants.

Chambers called as a witness Brittany Turner, who said she is an adult film actress who uses "Mocha Menage" as her stage name and has been a patient of Chambers' since 2016.

Turner said that as an actress, she had performed the act that Patient A claims that Chambers described using a slang term. Turner agreed with Chambers assertion that he could not have done such an act. The complaint only alleges that he said he tried to insert his whole hand.

"I've been accused of saying that I attempted to" commit the sex act, Chambers told the board. "So I'm trying to be respectful and not say that it's ridiculous, a ridiculous accusation."

Hearing officer Nancy Moss Ghusn set the next board session, which will include Patient C and two more witnesses for Chambers, for June 1.

A previous version of this story misstated the year a former patient said that a Las Vegas OB-GYN asked her to pose nude. The incident happened in 2018.

Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.Com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on Twitter.

Obstetrics And Gynecology Residency

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Let us welcome you to the Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Program at Baylor College of Medicine. Our program is located in Houston, the nation's fourth most populous city and the most culturally diverse city in the nation, and we serve the patients in the third largest county in the United States, Harris County, Houston.

We have over 100 dedicated faculty members that specialize in every facet of obstetrics and gynecology including family planning, fetal intervention, genetics, global health, gynecologic oncology, hospitalist, maternal fetal medicine, minimally invasive gynecologic surgery, pediatric gynecology, reproductive endocrinology and infertility, reproductive psychiatry, specialist in general obstetrics and gynecology, and urogynecology. They are talented clinicians, researchers and educators that practice state-of-the-art medicine and reflect the diversity of Houston.

Our program has full, continued accreditation with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Our application process is competitive and takes into account the full scope of information offered in the Electronic Residency Application Service. We offer many fourth-year electives.

Thank you for taking the time to review our website and your interest in our program.

Respectfully,

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