The Nurse Keith Show · Keith Carlson, RN, BSN, NC-BC

ENCORE EPISODE: Trauma, Healing, Racism, and Justice on the Front Lines of Healthcare

September 13, 2024·57 min·5 clips

A young Black woman told Michelle Harper, 'This is how Black women die,' before Harper assured her with care.

This episode features host Nurse Keith interviewing Dr. Michele Harper, an emergency physician and author of the bestselling memoir "The Beauty in Breaking." Dr. Harper discusses her experiences as a Black female physician, which comprises only about 2-3% of all physicians in the United States. She works primarily in an inner-city emergency department serving a predominantly Black, Brown, and immigrant community. Dr. Harper recounts a specific encounter with a young Black woman who came to the ER fearing she had breast cancer but couldn't reach her primary doctor. She describes another incident where police officers brought in a Black man under arrest, and a white medical resident named Lauren challenged Dr. Harper's medical decision to respect the patient's autonomy. The narrative references the historical figure of Dr. J. Marion Sims, who performed surgeries on enslaved Black women without anesthesia. Dr. Harper shares a contemporary case of a young Black woman with shortness of breath whose low oxygen levels were initially dismissed by an admitting doctor. She explains the multiple roles of an ER physician, acting as a salve, an antidote, and sometimes a psychopomp guiding souls. A memorable story involves an elderly man with metastatic cancer who chose to forgo hospital admission to live his remaining time naturally at home. Dr. Harper reads the powerful introduction to her book, which describes cradling the head of a 20-year-old gunshot victim. She connects the personal trauma of growing up with an abusive father to the societal trauma of systemic racism in healthcare. The Japanese art of kintsukuroi, repairing broken pottery with gold, is presented as a metaphor for healing. Dr. Harper states that the term "microaggressions" fails to capture the gross, macro consequences of such acts. She emphasizes that advocating for patients in a biased system is exhausting but rejuvenating work that requires sustainability over generations. Her self-care practices include yoga, drawing on the wisdom of James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, and listening to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. The editing process for her memoir involved adding more painful personal details about her divorce at her editor's request, which made her cry while writing. The tone is deeply conversational, reflective, and educational, blending personal narrative with systemic critique. The style is intimate and story-driven, using specific patient encounters to illustrate broader themes of justice and healing. This episode would deeply resonate with healthcare professionals interested in health equity, narrative medicine, and the intersection of personal and systemic trauma. Listeners seeking purely clinical advice or those uncomfortable with candid discussions of racism and personal vulnerability might choose to skip it.

As heard by us

A careful look at listening first when a patient knows what fits his life.

This episode follows a patient with metastatic cancer and a plainspoken talk about what care actually makes sense for him. He is healthy, active, and close with family, but the hospital, chemotherapy, and radiation do not feel like the right path.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Listen if you want a grounded case for honoring what patients say about their own bodies.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Nurse Keith Show