LAURA PROCTOR
Photojournalist

Where Are All The Black Doctors? A Day With Dr. Adom Bondzi-Simpson - 2022

Dr. Adom Bondzi-Simpson hasn’t forgotten how the words sounded. “Where’s the Black doctor!?”

“I think it was the power and strength of how he spoke those words. It was the fact that when I stepped outside of the room, I could hear him shouting. I could hear his call and pain or frustration.”

After contemplating the experience he had with this patient during his first year of residency, Adom would go on to write a piece about it which was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in September, 2022. “It was something that just always stuck with me,” says Adom. He had been told by colleagues that the elderly man was being difficult, but when Adom spoke with him he understood that the patient was afraid and unsure if he could trust the advice he was receiving.

According to the 2016 census 4.7 per cent of Ontario’s population is Black, yet Black physicians make up only about 2.3 per cent of the physician population, as of 2015.

After completing his studies in Medical Sciences at Brock University, Adom, 31, moved to Calgary for a Master’s degree in Immunology. He stayed to attend The University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine. Throughout his time in medical school, Adom frequently wondered: where are the Black medical students? “Going through med school in Calgary, I myself was one of two [Black medical students]. It was a class of about 160.”

Adom is now in his fourth year as a general surgery resident at UofT and is taking a pause from clinical training to do a research degree in clinical epidemiology at Dalla Lana School of Public Health. In 2021, Adom co-founded a mentorship program called UpSurge, alongside Dr. Sav Brar and fellow residents Amanpreet Kaur Brar and Betty Yibrehu. Upsurge is “aimed at stimulating interest, providing support, and guiding underrepresented students in pursuing surgical careers.”

“Particularly when we’re talking about Black representation in the medical field, I think that it’s important because there are certain challenges that are prevalent in the Black community,” Adom says. "I think that Black patients like to seek out care providers that may have similar backgrounds to them. I think it’s maybe perhaps safer in terms of them opening up and providing culturally competent care."

This feature was published on www.thehoser.ca