NY Law Scholarship

I remember stepping onto the medical floor that day and hearing labored breathing and the staccato bark of dry coughing. It was 6:00 A.M. on April 15, 2020 and I had just started my first shift volunteering in the COVID-19 wards at Mount Sinai Hospital. As I started making my rounds, I became acutely aware of something disturbing: of the patients under my care, most of the faces that looked out at me from behind respirator masks were those of black or brown people. This was the start of my re-kindled interest in pursuing a degree in law. While COVID-19 has undoubtedly shed new light on the realities of medical racism, this was not the first time that I witnessed inequities in health care. When I was a medical student, I noticed how medical studies often excluded Black, Indigenous, and People of Color individuals. As such, I made it a mission to develop scholarship that addresses issues of discrimination in the healthcare system. For example, my book chapter, “Ethnic Differences in Skin Properties: The Objective Data”, in The Handbook of Cosmetic Science and Technology, was a path-breaking study that engaged the ways that different skin types respond to various medical treatments. Since so many medications are designed with only white people in mind, my medical research was once again tied to questions of inclusivity and social justice. Experiences such as these have shaped my career as a physician for over the last 15 years. In my New York City-based private practice, I specialize in treating skin of color, and I am committed to providing care irrespective of my patients’ insurance status or their financial circumstances. I have built my practice to be one which engages people of diverse backgrounds, as well as those who have been historically affected by racism and income inequality. My achievements were recently recognized in the New York Times article, “Dermatology Has a Problem with Skin of Color”, in which I am featured as a dermatologist who addresses the lack of racial inclusivity in the medical education curriculum that is taught to future physicians. I am also in the process of creating an online database that highlights physicians of color so that patients can more readily and easily connect with doctors who are attuned to their specific health care needs. While I am proud of the ways my practice has allowed me to engage problems of inequity on an individual-patient basis, I am now at a place in my career where I want to address these issues on a more systemic scale. Because of the structural dimension of medical inequity, a Juris Doctor degree in law would enable me to take an intersectional approach to addressing the legal aspects of the healthcare system in the United States to better advocate for those who lack a voice. Thus, I am particularly interested in focusing on public health and civil rights law, with an eye toward developing a non-profit, medical-legal, community-driven initiative that will advocate for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as undocumented and uninsured immigrant populations, in receiving the physical and mental health care that they deserve.