Amanda Little-Richardson, MD, MPH, is an ob-gyn who recently graduated from Lenox Hill Hospital, now featured on the Netflix documentary,. She earned her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine and a master of public health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Little-Richardson currently works at Kaiser San Jose.
As a Black person, you learn from an early age where your place is in this world. Your family and community may do what they can to nurture and protect you from racism, but it contaminates all aspects of American life. In third grade, I asked my dad,"Are white people better than Black people?" We had just moved from Maryland to Texas. Nothing had ever been said in our home to suggest that I wasn't equal to my peers.
This cloud of inferiority followed me until my parents' military career led them to Germany, where ironically, I went to school with other Black children for the first time. I still smile thinking of the first time someone told me they had a crush on me. I had never known anyone who liked me before. Though it may seem insignificant, it's a social form of validation.
After graduating from high school in Korea, I returned to the States for college. While I considered other career paths, I ultimately decided to enroll in pre-med courses. My parents had always emphasized helping others, and for me, medicine was the most practical way to do that. As a doctor, you meet people at their most vulnerable and offer them relief. There's so much opportunity for improving the lives of whole communities through medicine.