How Identity Has Influenced a Neurosurgery Resident at Vanderbilt Medical Center's Career

This is a great question. I can spend hours talking about how this has impacted who I am, where I am, and what defines my personality and everything I stand for.

My parents never went to school. My mom and dad's education ended in middle school, so they never had any formal education, not even high school. I'm the first physician in my family. I come from a family of four boys, and the third was born paralyzed, which is why I'm pursuing neurosurgery.

Coming from those family dynamics to get where I am, from housekeeping to this point, really shapes who you are as a person. I also grew up in Ghana, a very resource-poor country with only about 20 neurosurgeons for a population of 30 million. That really shifts your mindset.

Now, as an African American in neurosurgery in the United States, there aren't many of us. In previous years, the highest number of African Americans to make it into neurosurgery as first-year interns was 12. In my year group, we were about 20 something. However, there are huge challenges in retaining or graduating African Americans within neurosurgery.

More than 50% of programs to this day do not have any African Americans, or have ever had any. It's a very competitive field. Not many people apply, but even those who do are African Americans and don't get in. And even if you get in, how do you finish? The majority end up leaving or being fired. It's a very, very strong field.

At Vanderbilt, I believe I'm either the second or third Black person ever in the program's history. Last year, it was all over CNN that we had our first Black female resident ever in the program's history. You hear about these things and realize we've come a long way, but we still have a lot of work to do.

This makes things very hard. While people may not talk about their inherent biases, not everything is racism. I think we all have our own biases. When I started in 2022, I was the only Black person in the entire department.

What people fail to realize is that everything you do gets hyper-highlighted because you are the only person who looks like you. Anything you do or say draws so much attention. You are alone, and it's hard to seek out people or help or mentors if they don't also look like you, because they will never understand your experience.

The only people you can talk to are outside your department or other neurosurgeons in different programs. That experience makes for a very lonely journey where you're going through it alone. My program has been very supportive, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I let them know they won't understand what I'm going through. It's hard to explain it without bringing race into it.

This makes navigating this field very hard. There aren't many of us, and there aren't many people within your own department to seek help from or to understand what you're going through. My department honestly does its best to be supportive of whatever I want to do.

But I've always sought outside mentorship and guidance from people who have been through similar experiences. Some of them were the first in their class when they did neurosurgery. Listening to them and how they successfully graduated or are successful now has been a great resource.

It is extremely difficult. I'm not going to sugarcoat it; it's extremely difficult. I am glad that Tamaya, the first Black female neurosurgery resident at Vanderbilt, is with me now. There are two of us, and we have each other's backs and have been supporting each other, which has been a strong comfort. I also have many resources outside the department that have been helping me.

Again, my department is very supportive, especially when I bring up ideas or challenges I'm facing. But I have always sought outside mentorship and guidance from other people who have been through what I have been through. Some of them were the first in their class when they did neurosurgery. Just listening to them and how they were able to successfully graduate or how they are successful in what they're doing now has been a great resource.