Only 5.7% of US doctors are Black, and experts warn the shortage harms public health
Only 5.7% of US doctors are Black, and experts warn the shortage harms public health ] When being truly honest with herself, Seun Adebagbo says, she can describe what drove her to go to medical school in a single word: self-preservation. Adebagbo, who was born in Nigeria and grew up in Boston, said that as a child, she often saw tensions between certain aspects of Western medicine and beliefs within Nigerian culture. She yearned to have the expertise to bridge those worlds and help translate medical information while combating misinformation – for her loved ones and for herself. Seun Adebagbo, a third-year medical student in Massachusetts, hopes to contribute to the physician work force in the United States, where only 5.7% of doctors identify as Black. “I wanted to go into medicine because I felt like, ‘Who better to mediate that tension than someone like me, who knows what it’s like to exist in both?’ ” said Adebagbo, 26, who graduated from Stanford University and is now a third-yea