I Was The Only Black Medical Student In My Year. Here’s What I Did About It

In the just-released Unlike the Rest: A Doctor’s Story, debut author Dr. Chika Stacy Oriuwa pulls back the curtain on the reality of studying to become a doctor in Canada—and in particular, what it was like to be the only Black student in her year at medical school. “When I wrote this memoir about my journey to and through medical school under harrowing circumstances, it didn’t only feel necessary for me, but existential,” she says. “I not only share the moments in my clinical training that shaped me, but also those that lingered with me long after I left the hospital wards.”

In the excerpt below, Oriuwa shares one of those moments: learning that a new cohort of medical students will include 14 Black future doctors after fighting for greater representation herself.

I cried and kept crying.

Deep, heavy, unyielding sobs that emerged from the core of my body, taking me, and everyone else present on the Black Student Application Program (BSAP) advisory committee, by surprise. The kind of weeping that demands a bit of space instead of consolation; no soft-handed back rub, no emotional support check-ins. Just me sitting at the boardroom table, head curled toward my chest, trying to stifle the growing shivers that reverberated through my body.

It was a river of tears that burst through the dam of repose that I had built over the past two years; a chink in my armour of strength cracking straight through on that late April 2018 afternoon.

Mere moments before, the chair of the admissions committee, and one of the members of the advisory committee, a cardiac surgeon named Dr. David Latter, had announced that there would be fourteen Black medical students matriculating through the BSAP program that fall.

Fourteen. Black, brilliant, deserving medical students.

Fourteen Black medical students who would never have to know the pain of walking across the stethoscope ceremony stage wondering if they would need to brave the next four years alone. Fourteen Black medical students who, even if they didn’t become the best of friends, could lean on one another in moments when their humanity, ability and merit were challenged. Fourteen Black medical students who could find a space of solidarity, who could unburden themselves of code-switching and relax into their Blackness without reservation. Fourteen Black medical students who would shift the discourse among their classmates, bringing forth issues as they related to Black health, and creating safer spaces for Black patients to receive medical care. Fourteen Black medical students who would improve the learning environment for every other student in the MSB auditorium and foster a richer, more diverse dialogue.

Fourteen.

The number struck me like a meteorite; a blazing projection of hope whose impact was unprecedented. I had spent the past several years absorbing racial aggression in the face of my aspirations to become a physician, the past two years devastated that I was the only Black medical student in my class—absorbing further macro- and micro-aggressions—and the past year and a half advocating tirelessly for change, lending my voice and narrative to a cause that threatened professional and at times personal extinction. I had stepped into the public spotlight, against the warnings and omens of being blacklisted within the medical community, and got harassed mercilessly and violently online. I had unapologetically occupied space when my dissenters dared earnestly to push me out.

At times, the war was within myself, as I wrestled with disordered eating and anxiety in the throes of my isolation, in front of the world.

But in that moment, when I learned that fourteen outstanding Black medical students would be admitted that fall, I nearly collapsed from the gratitude, shock, relief and sheer anguish.

I relished knowing that no other Black medical student would walk through the University of Toronto alone, ever again, so long as BSAP remained in place—and we were certain that it would. That was my primary and initial goal in my advocacy, and it was achieved.

Amazement filled my mind considering the stark difference achieved in only two years, from one Black medical student to fourteen, in part due to a wildly successful campaign that gained national headlines and drew in dozens of worthy candidates. Every single media interview and anonymous racist comment, every midday mentorship meeting before an exam, every interview prep session or essay edit, and every blatant plea to the Black candidates on interview day to choose U of T was worth it.

We were changing the face of what a doctor looked like.

But within the tears of unbridled happiness were also those of pain. I immediately wondered how different my journey would have been if I’d had thirteen other Black medical students in my class. How I could have avoided, from day one, facing certain moments of racism alone. How I could have brought my Blackness more comfortably into the space from the beginning, instead of hiding it for fear of being ostracized.

I felt robbed. I felt deceived for choosing U of T based in part on the school having a BMSA, only to arrive and find no one else in my year would be a member. I felt the anger of being disillusioned, the ripe, raw disbelief that had struck me during orientation week.

I cried knowing that, although there would be a seismic change in the years after me, my position remained fixed. I would need to weather the next two years of clerkship even more alone, and face more instances of discrimination from patients and staff, as I was told was often the experience of Black learners.

They would have each other, and I would still be the lone soldier.

As I wept in a room full of senior faculty physicians and administrators, I could hear more sobs slowly emerging from across the table.

It was Lisa, wiping away her tears. I’m sure she felt what I did in that moment: relief and pain, gratitude and grief. We were connected in our journeys and our laments.

“We should give Chika a moment, as we can imagine that this is a particularly special but difficult thing for her to process,” said Onye. The sleeves of my grey sweater turned charcoal from the dampness of my eyes, and my sobs made my breaths short and sharp. Onye, too, was overcome with emotion at the gravity of this announcement.

There was not a dry eye in the room. 

Excerpted from Unlike the Rest: A Doctor’s Story by Chika Stacy Oriuwa, 2024. Published by HarperCollins Canada.