It took Dr. Anthony Williams a protracted time to get to where he’s in his journey. He started off as a chemical engineering student in Oklahoma, and after he graduated, it might be seven years before he migrated north to Minnesota for medical school. And it wasn’t until the end of residency that he began mixing his lived experiences together with his underlying passion for writing and storytelling.
But now, five years out of residency, Dr. Williams has fully realized and combined his passions together with his vocation. Not only is he an internal medicine and pediatrics hospitalist at Regions Hospital, but he’s also the associate program director for the Regions med-peds residency and associate director of the Center for the Art of Medicine.
Dr. Williams is deeply thinking about the places where his work and lived experience intersect with issues of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). So on this episode, he shares some of his experiences, lessons he’s learned along the way and advice for locating one’s place in DEI work. Take heed to the episode or read the transcript.
Find what feeds your soul
Dr. Williams recognizes that DEI work can seem overwhelming from the outside. There are such a lot of levels it may well occur on – from legislative initiatives and institutional policies to interpersonal relationships. And we aren’t all cut out for the same work. Dr. Williams knows that, for himself, political advocacy wouldn’t be a very good fit. He wouldn’t have the ability to sustain it.
Given this, Dr. Williams’ advice for individuals who intend to make things higher is straightforward and intuitive: take a look at what you already do. When no one is watching, while you aren’t being pushed or pulled by external forces, what do you gravitate toward? For Dr. Williams, it’s writing and mentorship. He mentored people in undergrad and medical school, and he knows he’d all the time be writing and creating narratives regardless of what else he did. These kinds of work are naturally sustainable for him, and they’ve brought him to where he’s today.
Change your mindset
Once you understand what kind of work you must do, you have got to seek out an area where it’s going down. Dr. Williams believes that folks tend, consciously or subconsciously, to have a look at entering DEI work as a person effort. They appear at it as themselves going up against the big ideas like racial biases or health equity, and with that, they turn into concerned with failure. Possibly they’ll do something incorrect and cause harm or overstep their bounds.
Dr. Williams stresses the importance of getting out of this individualized mindset. At the end of the day, this work isn’t about us as individuals – it’s about the goal of the work, which is nearly all the time communal. We each may bring certain strengths to the table, but we’ve got to simply accept that we’re all limited in our experiences and knowledge, and we’ve got to be open to learning.
Dr. Williams knows this firsthand: he’s perfectly comfortable discussing issues of race in medicine, but when it got here time to work on a project related to disability, he was not in his area of expertise. He needed to embrace the discomfort of being uninformed, sit back and ask questions. In other words, he needed to practice cultural humility.
Remember we’re all human
The mindset that Dr. Williams encourages for approaching DEI work isn’t only useful there – it may well also extend to our every day lives and work. This, specifically, is where Dr. Williams’ passion for narrative comes into play.
Relatively than approach his patients as a representative of medical knowledge, he puts his humanity first. He looks for places where his lived experience resonates with that of his patients and lets that resonance lead. That way, when the discussion reaches topics like treatments and recommendations, his patients are more receptive. They know Dr. Williams is someone with a story like theirs and that his advice is coming from the heart. Dr. Williams also knows he can’t achieve that dynamic with every patient. But he still does his best for them and will usher in one other provider if he thinks they’ve a greater likelihood of connecting.
Dr. Williams’ experiences show us what good work is actually about: connection. And connection requires empathy – actually for others, but additionally for ourselves. When envisioning the work we wish to do, we’ve got to be kind and reasonable about what we are able to do, what our strengths are and where we’re limited. This self-knowledge shows us where we may also help, and where we are able to learn. To listen to more about Dr. Williams’ perspective, experience and projects, hearken to this episode of Off the Charts.