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STEM field: Medicine
Time period: Present

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http://www.blackandbrownskin.co.uk/mindthegap

https://www.tryhutano.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=136iuHIh9mE

https://www.bmemedics.co.uk/post/interview-with-malone-mukwende-mind-the-gap

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STEM field: Emergency Medical Services
Time period: 1960s, 1970s

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https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2035467

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/freedom-house-ambulance-service/

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/03/01/389798498/how-pittsburghs-freedom-house-pioneered-paramedic-treatment

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Malone Mukwende is a Zimbabwean medical student whose work has been highlighted internationally by Forbes, TIME, Google, Merck, and so many more – but his healthcare journey had a peculiar start. Following rejection from several medical schools, Mukwende called St. George’s, University of London to inquire about open seats. Mukwende interviewed with St. George’s 2.5 hours after his call and was accepted into the program about an hour later.

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Many medical symptoms present differently across different skin types, but in health education, white skin is king. Students read that the baseline for healthy skin is “pink, warm and dry.” They view images of red rashes and blue lips on white patients. The list goes on. Without being taught to recognize variation from the white model, healthcare providers contribute to under/misdiagnosed disease and poor health outcomes in non-white people.

Upon noticing the remarkable lack of diversity in his medical textbooks and identifying this unmet health education need, Mukwende pioneered “Mind the Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin.” Published in 2020, “Mind the Gap” includes photos and descriptions of how various medical conditions appear on people with dark skin. Soon thereafter, Mukwende launched Hutano, a social health platform designed to give black and brown people a safe space to discuss their skin health.

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Freedom House Ambulance Service – the blueprint for modern-day Emergency Medical Services – was born as an effort to improve emergency medical outcomes in inner-city Pittsburgh and to employ these communities’ black youth (mostly high school dropouts). Thus, Hill District’s black men and women in their late teens and early twenties became America’s first-ever paramedics, trained to administer life-saving techniques such as CPR and intubation in a pre-hospital setting.

Freedom House paramedics were initially subject to ample discrimination. Many emergency room nurses refused to take the non-hospital workers seriously, while many white patients refused to receive treatment from black providers. Yet, once word spread of Freedom House’s exemplary on-scene medical care, hospital personnel began to show respect, and whites began to complain that the Hill District was receiving preferential emergency treatment while Pittsburgh’s affluent neighborhoods were still only being taxied by police and funeral home employees.

Despite a highly successful eight years, Freedom House Ambulance Service was stripped of its funding in 1975 and replaced by a city-run ambulance service.

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Freedom House, America's First Paramedic Unit pt 1

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Freedom House EMS members George McCary III, Darnella Wilson and Walter Brown Jr. share some stories about America's first Paramedic Unit

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Leading up to the 1960s, ambulance service consisted merely of loading patients into the back of a hearse or police van and speeding to the hospital. But even this already bare-bones approach was provided at a lesser quality to the people of Pittsburgh’s economically disadvantaged, predominately black Hill District. In need of emergency medical care, when every minute is critical, Hill District residents were met with delayed responses, exemplifying the racially driven disparities plaguing national public health at the time.