Stand on my shoulders | Support as a facilitator | If it wasn’t for [the Black guidance counsellor] who was there to look out for me I don’t know if I would have had that encouragement to believe that that was within my realm of possibilities. (P6) |
Support systems are personal, not institutional | Cliques, clubs and networking connections are a reality and do matter in medicine as in most other professions. If you’re not properly mentored and counselled on how to develop your career early on (including after completion of training), it’s very easy to miss opportunities because you don’t hear about them/get invited, to be unaware of your full potential and underachieve, or be slow to progress to your desired goal. (P26) |
Representation matters | Being around people that look like you and have the same background as you I think is something that’s very comforting, it makes you feel safe and it’s just a different type of joy. (P32) |
Never the student; ever the teacher | Advocating for each other | Knowing the asset that I could be to the community also pushed me as well in that direction and continues to push me in that direction because I know that that’s something that’s very much needed. (P22) |
Self-advocacy | I always look at the demographics, I always think about well what is this going to look like in a Black person, but no one else really thinks about that. And I don’t want to be the person every single time bringing up that one thing. (P12) |
Being an educator, self-advocacy or advocating for each other | You’re constantly not only experiencing trauma in terms of seeing the brutalization of Black people and then experiencing your own kind of hardships in terms of life, but then you also have to always just be advocating, so you can never just exist as a Black person. (P14) |
Being an educator | I shouldn’t have to teach my teachers how to portray my people. (P32) |
Lack of local opportunities | [University] doesn’t offer clinical research bachelor’s, like a Bachelor of Science and regulatory affairs and regulatory sciences. So that was not even a program at [university] for me to know of, to have interest. if you don’t have like information on this, you’ll be confused and that happens a lot in our community. (P29) |
Growing through pain | Imposter syndrome | Even when I got in med school I still struggled with confidence against, like I was afraid to raise my hand and speak up in class, ask questions, afraid that I wouldn’t sound articulate or smart enough when I talked. Or that they’d catch on, they’d be like oh why [are they] even here, [are they] the diversity admission? Those types of things would cross my mind. (P12) |
Imposter syndrome and microaggressions | I remember, you know, some of my classmates were politically minded and not discussions involving me but around me, about … something like the existence of the seat would have been problematic for this person, so I distinctly remember not engaging in that conversation ‘cause I felt insecure. (P3) |
Discrimination as a barrier | I’ve gotten comments or people not realizing that I’m the [health professional] … When I went to [province] to practise … . So there were some [health professionals] that wanted me and then there were some that didn’t want me and there were some that were advocating for me, but it came down to a race thing. (P23) |
Microaggressions and discrimination as a barrier | Something that’s honestly probably still a little triggering for me today, even though like I’m aware of it, is that just like the perception of other people like how I present something. Like I could present an argument the same exact way but it would be taken as … words of aggression and like people got very, very defensive very, very quickly … versus like my [white] peers presenting a similar argument, even if it was something we worked on together, but if [they] presented it, it was almost like palatable for other people. (P34) I think subconsciously that I know that I have to work hard and it’s a burden that I carry and I sometimes feel that I can choose not to but it’s so hard to get rid of. It’s that knowing that if I make a mistake it’s just probably going to be dismissed to the fact that I was not as deserving of the spot. Whereas if a white colleague makes the same mistake, it’s just a junior trainee. (P11) |
Microaggressions | Had I maybe been more mature at that time, or just had more life experience I might have addressed [the microaggression] in the moment ‘cause that was a great learning opportunity for everyone in the room but it’s intimidating to do that so it’s like, but it stays with you. (P3) |
People expect failure | It was like treacherous going through and I think it’s because of a lot of the same concepts were still there. So it’s like professors just not believe you were going to succeed, they did not want to identify you as having potential so they [did not want to support] you, me, bring it back to me. (P4) |
Change | Representation matters | People who look like you are definitely important obviously because it’s so important to see yourself in the spaces as mentors. (P1) |
Representation at the faculty level | I think also there should be some effort or thought to developing Black faculty, because I think opportunities aren’t the same across the board for Black faculty and in terms of career advancement. (P26) |
Programs enrolling students of African descent just to meet diversity quotas | It doesn’t make you feel good because we’re always fighting to be put into the program and you enroll the most, literally if they could enroll half of me I’m sure they would. (P22) |
Positive experience; intentional enrolment | Over the past 3 to 4 years, I think the thing that I’ve noticed is [the program] has taken an active approach to trying to get more people into the program and I think it’s been reflected in the numbers. (P30) |
Positive experience; intentionally seeking feedback | They took interest in the program and kind of did some surveys and asked people how like culturally competent or if they thought some of the classes were and how could they bring more diversity into what we were learning. So I think I did leave that program having diversity being culturally competent in my work, like at the forefront of my mind. (P31) |
Curriculum improvements; education by Black community, for Black community | I would take courses that were supposed to be about diversity and they were taught by white women or like people that would come in and teach us about racism and they would still be talking about things that were like systemically oppressing us and they would contribute to stigma. (P32) |
Support at all levels | It’s a tough world for Black faculty and I know people think, oh, once you’re faculty, once you’re staff, you kind of, you’ve made it you’re out there on a level playing field now you, but it’s really it’s not, even there, it’s not. (P26) |
Need for education around the social determinants of health; fear for Black community | Now [my peers] are all practitioners and they all work in areas not only with Black people but Indigenous communities and they have no, some of them still don’t know what the social determinants of health are and they don’t understand how it integrates into health outcomes. So that’s extremely scary. (P14) |
Curriculum improvements; a hidden curriculum not available to Black students | I think throughout [health professional] school, I feel like I’m given … the basics but there is a hidden curriculum, there’s these things that you need to know … and that’s why it’s so important to me to pass that on. (P6) |
Personal responsibility to bring change (links to invisible tax) | Knowing that I’m one of the few in my program, I do feel a sense of responsibility to bring about some change, at some level. (P11) |