Episode #177 Fighting the ‘Othering’ mindset in Healthcare – with Stella Safo, MD, founder & CEO of ‘Just Equity for Health’

Creating a New Healthcare

If you’ve ever wondered, ‘But what can I do? – please listen to this episode. Dr. Stella Safo, a Harvard-educated, Ghanaian-American physician, provides us all with her wisdom, experience and courageous efforts in addressing that question.

In this interview we’ll cover:

• Some shocking and saddening stats on healthcare inequities & disparities in the US
• The enabling power of community and civic engagement
• The importance of sharing our ‘inexpert knowledge’
• Understanding and confronting our own internal ‘othering’
• Why Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is critical in healthcare delivery
• The origin and creation of the “Green Book survival guide” for healthcare that Dr. Safo and her colleagues are creating
• AfterShock – the 2022 documentary about two young healthy black women who died after childbirth from preventable causes.
• An introduction to the ‘Wake Up Everybody’ community.
• The major lessons I learned from Dr. Safo – challenging our assumptions about ourselves and about our relationship to ‘the system’.

Dr. Stella Safo is a practicing primary care physician, public health advocate, and the founder of ‘Just Equity for Health’. She is an assistant professor at the Mount Sinai Health System in NYC and has served as the Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Premier. Dr. Safo is a founding member of several organizations dedicated to gender, racial equity and civic engagement in medicine – including ‘Equity Now’ at Mount Sinai, ‘Civic Health Alliance’ and the ‘Coalition to Advance Antiracism in Medicine’.

If you’re interested in learning more about her work, follow her on LinkedIn or check out Just Equity for Health and Thriving in the Last Mile.