The well being disparities that predominantly have an effect on Black People and her household’s legacy in human rights activism had been the driving forces for Dr. Jessie Fields to rework the lives of a whole lot of sufferers via medication, artwork, and social justice. She has been advocating for equal entry to healthcare and serving the neighborhood via medication since 1985.
Fields is a Harlem-based doctor who grew up in Pennsylvania. From a really younger age, she knew her calling could be to rework deprived communities via her work as a physician.
“I might see the connection between the circumstances that individuals had been rising up in, the circumstances folks lived in — financial circumstances, lack of high quality training, poverty, oppression, discrimination,” Fields mentioned in describing how her family setting motivated her to pursue a profession in medication. “I knew that these issues affected well being, and I needed to broaden my profession as a doctor and be capable of impression the neighborhood broadly.”
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After being board-certified in inside medication, Fields moved to New York in 1991 to work as a main care doctor for the Well being Insurance coverage Plan of New York after which for the 32-BJ Union Well being Heart. In 1994, she grew to become affiliated with North Basic Hospital in Harlem and remained on the voluntary employees there till the hospital closed in 2010.
Fields additionally leads the initiative Creating Our Psychological Well being, which, with workshops with therapists and efficiency activists from the East Aspect Institute, makes use of poetry to construct social connection and convey historical past and emotion collectively within the group-building course of.
The workshops led by Fields, held at refugee facilities, residential services, and meals banks, goal to assist communities achieve instruments for managing their feelings.
For Fields, medication and neighborhood service have all the time been interconnected.
“I do all these various things, however I’m the identical individual doing them. Nonetheless, for me, human well being and development are very linked,” mentioned Fields about her work as each a physician and neighborhood organizer. “I see sufferers with diabetes, hypertension, bronchial asthma, and different infectious ailments and so they come from communities the place I see racial well being disparities immediately.”
All through her profession as a physician, Fields has impressed younger folks within the subject of medication to remain linked with communities and take heed to their wants. Since 2014, she has served as an educator for the course “The Artwork and Science of Drugs” and mentored third-year medical college students at Mount Sinai. She additionally works in youth growth applications for underserved communities, serving to younger folks curious about pursuing careers in medication via the All Stars Undertaking Growth Faculty for Youth.
