Michele Harper has worked as an emergency room physician for more than a decade at various institutions, including as chief resident at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and in the emergency department at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia. I asked her if there was anything we at the hospital could do, after I made sure she wasn't in physical danger and wasn't going to kill herself. When we do experience racism, they often don't get it and may even hold us accountable for it. DAVIES: Have things improved? And, you know, while I haven't had a child that has died, I recognized in the parents when I had to talk to them after the code and tell them that their baby, that their perfect child - and the baby was perfect - had passed away, I recognized in them the agony, the loss of plans, of promise, the loss of a future that one had imagined. That takes a little more time, you know, equitable hiring, equitable pay. My being there with them in the moment did force me to be honest with myself about - that's why it was so painful for the marriage to end. I ran to the room. Dr. Michele Harper, a New Jersey-based emergency room physician, has over a decade's experience in the ER. she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. He is affiliated with medical facilities Baptist Health Floyd and Clark Memorial Health. [Read an excerpt from The Beauty in Breaking. ]. DAVIES: You describe an incident in which a patient was brought in - I guess was handcuffed to a chair, and there were four police officers there who said he swallowed a bag of drugs, and they wanted him treated, I guess, you know, the stomach pumped or whatever. You want to just tell us about this interaction? Dr. Michele Harper sheds light on how the coronavirus pandemic has affected health care workers and the virus's impact on vulnerable populations, and discuss. Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. And even clinically, when I'm not, like when I worked at Einstein Hospital in Philadelphia, it's a similar environment. In that sameness is our common entitlement to respect, our human entitlement to love.. But that night was the first time Harper caught a glimpse of a future outside her parents house. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're speaking with Dr. Michele Harper. She's a veteran emergency room physician. . And apart from your many dealings with police as a physician, you had a relationship with a policeman you write about in the book, an officer who was getting out of a bad marriage to a woman who was irrational and very difficult. She is an advocate of personal wellness and evolution as a foundation for collective liberation. And in that story and after - when I went home and cried, that was a moment where that experience allowed me to be honest. But the shortages remain. It involves a 22-month-old baby who was brought in who apparently had had a seizure. April 12, 2014. Join us for an enlightening discussion with Dr. Michele Harper as she highlights the lessons learned on her inspiring personal journey of discovery and . Most of us have had the experience of heading to a hospital emergency room and having a one-time encounter with a physician who stitches our wounds, gives us medication or admits us for further treatment. The popular couple has been together for over two decades, and . Recorded in Miami [] The experience leads her to reflect on the often underreported assaults on front-line medical workers and her own healing and growth as a physician. HARPER: That's a great question, and I am glad we're having the conversations and that there is space for the conversations. And that was a time that you called. These are the risks we take every day as people of color, as women in a structure that is not set up to be equitable, that is set up to ignore and silence us often. Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Dr. Michael Harper, MD is an Internal Medicine Specialist in Sellersburg, IN and has over 28 years of experience in the medical field. And then I got a call from the radiologist that while there was no pneumonia, she had several broken ribs, different stages of healing, so they happened at different times. Our guest today, Michele Harper, is a career ER doctor and one of roughly 2% of American physicians who are African American women. Their specialties include Obstetrics & Gynecology. Their stories weigh heavily on my heart. When youre Black in medicine, there are constant battles. When I was in high school, I would write poetry, she says. I'm hoping that we will. Education. It was fogging up. In her first book, "The Beauty in Breaking," Dr. Harper tells a tale of empathy, overcoming prejudice, and learning to heal herself by healing others. But, you know, I'm a professional, so I just move on and treat her professionally each shift. I don't know what happened to her afterwards. Certainly it was my safe haven when I could leave the home. And I felt that if I just left the room and didn't ask that I would be ignoring her pain. DAVIES: I don't want to dwell on this too much. Her memoir is "The Beauty In Breaking." Coming up, Maureen Corrigan reviews "Mexican Gothic," a horror story she says is a ghastly treat . She writes that she's grown emotionally and learned from her patients as she struggled to overcome pain in her own life, growing up with an abusive father and coping with the breakup of her marriage. Heather John Fogarty is a Los Angeles writer whose work is anthologized in Slouching Towards Los Angeles: Living and Writing and by Joan Didions Light. She teaches journalism at USC Annenberg. In this exquisitely-written, incredibly humane, and inspiring memoir, she tells the story of how she found healing for her own wounds by becoming a healer of others. And you're right. DAVIES: Right. That's what it would entail to do what the police were telling us to do. Her book, The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir. When I left the room, I found out that the police officer had said that he was going to try to arrest me for interfering with his investigation. Further, for women and people of color who do make it into the medical field, were often overlooked for leadership roles. It wasn't about me. And you give a pretty dispiriting picture of the place in some ways. Published on July 7, 2020 05:41 PM. They have no role in a febrile seizure. 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And it's not just her. But she wasn't waking up, so I knew I was going to have to transfer her anyway. Though we both live in the same area, COVID-19 kept us from meeting in a studio. Emily and Dr. Harper discuss the back stories that become salient in caring for patients who may be suffering from more than just the injuries . The officers said we were to do it anyway. She's an emergency medicine physician. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a . So not only had they done all this violation, but then they were trying to take away her livelihood as well. It's called "The Beauty In Breaking.". Photo: LaTosha Oglesby. Her cries became more and more distressed. This is FRESH AIR. Harpers crash course on the state of American health care should be a prerequisite for anyone awaiting a coronavirus vaccine. The patient, medically, was fine. It is the responsibility of everyone in the department. Whether you have read The Beauty in Breaking or not there are important lessons in self-healing to take . And my emergency medicine director was explaining that even though there was no other candidate and I was the only one who applied, they decided to leave it open. It wasnt easy. I enjoyed my studies. Learn More. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn . Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. I mean, yeah, the pain of my childhood in that there wasn't, like you said, an available rescue option at that point gave me the opportunity as I was growing up to explore that and to heal and think to myself I want to be part of that safety net for other people when it's possible. DAVIES: I'm, you know, just thinking that you were an African American woman in a place where a lot of the patients were people of color. Harper, who has worked as an ER physician for more than a decade, said she found her own life broken when she began writing The Beauty in the Breaking. Her marriage had ended, and she had moved to Philadelphia to begin a new job. She was just trying to get help because she was assaulted. That was just being in school. And apart from this violation, this crime committed against her - the violation of her body, her mind, her spirit - apart from that, the military handled it terribly. But I could amplify her story because this is an example of a structure that has violated her. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central . You know, did they pull through the heart attack? I didn't know why. And in that moment, that experience with that family allowed me to, in ways I hadn't previously, just sit there with myself and be honest and to cry about it. Well, she wasn't coming to, which can happen. HARPER: The change is that we've had donations. Michelle Harper's age is 44. There are so many powerful beats youll want to underline. Her story is increasingly relevant as the aftermath of the pandemic continues to profoundly affect the medical community. I don't know if the allegations against him were true. Michelle Harper was born on the 16th of March, 1978. "We met when we were 15," Mr. Leeb recently recalled . Sometimes our supervisors dont understand. I mean, I feel that that is their mission. Is that how it should be? Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. She was there with her doting father. Her Patients, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/books/the-beauty-in-breaking-michele-harper.html. It's people outside of your departments. Or was it a constant worry? This is an interesting incident, the way it unfolded. DAVIES: You know, you write in the very beginning of the book, in describing what the book is about, that you want to take us into the chaos of emergency medicine and show us where the center is. ER Physician and author of THE BEAUTY IN BREAKING, a New York Times Bestseller ( @riverheadbooks ) Speaking: @penguinrandomhouse Speakers Bureau. And I specifically don't speak about much of that time and I mentioned how graduation from undergrad was - pretty much didn't go because it was tough being a Black woman in a predominantly white, elitist institution. Michele Harper writes: I am the doctor whose palms bolster the head of the 20-year-old man with a gunshot wound to his brain. Like any workplace, medicine has a hierarchy but people of color and women are usually undermined. Thank you. You wrote a piece recently for the website Medium - I guess it was about six weeks ago - describing the harrowing work of treating COVID-19 patients. But there has to be that agreement and understanding or nothing will be done about it. I mean, it doesn't have to go that way. But Harper isn't just telling war stories in her book. I kept thinking, This is absurd. Part of me was laughing inside because she thought she could be so ignorant and inappropriate. It's emotionally taxing. micheleharpermd. To say that the last year has been one of breaking, of brokennessbroken systems, broken lives, broken promiseswould be an understatement. The gash came from Harpers fathers teeth. Theres no easy answer to this question. This will be a lifetime work, though. So I did ask, and she told me what she had been through in the military was her supervisor and then her colleague raping her. Is it different? Her book is called "The Beauty In Breaking.". DAVIES: Yeah. Dr. Harper has particular interests in high-risk and routine obstetrics and preventive care. And one of them that I wanted to focus on was one of the last in the book. www.micheleharper.com. One of the more memorable patients that you dealt with at the VA hospital was a woman who had served in Afghanistan, and you had quite a conversation with her. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Whatever their wounds, whatever their trauma, it can make them act in this way. Dr. In another passage, Harper recounts an incident in which a patient unexpectedly turns violent and attacks her during an examination. In medicine, theres no consensus that racism is a problem. She was saying, "Leave. Author Talk w/ Dr. Michelle Harper: The Beauty in Breaking. A teenage Harper had newly received her learners permit when she drove her brother, bleeding from a bite wound inflicted by their father during a fight, to the ER. And when they showed up, they said, well, I suppose we'll just arrest you both, meaning my father and my brother. Brought up in Washington, DC, in an abusive family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. So the only difference with Dominic was he was a person considered not to have rights. It was a gift that they gave me that, then, yes, allowed me to heal in ways that weren't previously possible. 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And it just - something about it - I couldn't let it go. As Harper remembers it, The whole gamut of life seemed to be converging in this space., She decided she wanted to become an emergency room doctor because unlike in the war zone that was my childhood, I would be in control of that space, providing relief or at least a reprieve to those who called out for help.. DAVIES: What was going on when you - what made you call that time? So it was always punctuated by violence. HARPER: Yeah. And she called the hospital medical legal team to see if that was OK and if somehow she could go over me - because she felt that she was entitled to do so - to get done what the police wanted done. Turns out she couldn't, and the hospital legal told her that I was actually quoting the law. Weve bought into a collective delusion that healthcare is a privilege and not a right. I mean, I ended up helping my brother get care for that wound. He refuses an examination; after a brief conversation in which it seems as if they are the only two people in the crowded triage area, she agrees (against the wishes of the officers and a colleague) to discharge him. But you don't - it's really the comfort with uncertainty that we've gained. Emergency room doctor Michele Harper brings her memoir, The Beauty in Breaking, to the L.A. Times Book Club June 29. The following review first appeared in The DO magazine. It's called "The Beauty In Breaking." It was traumatic brain injury, and that's why she presented with altered consciousness that day. And so then my brother became the target of violence from my father. And as a result, it did expedite the care that she needed. But the hospital, if I had not intervened, would have been complicit. What was different about me in that case when my resident thought I didn't have the right to make this decision was because I was dark-skinned. Let me reintroduce you. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your device and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. It's many people. I could wrap this up in 10 minutes, and then I could go home. Touching on themes of race and gender, Harper gives voice and humanity to patients who are marginalized and offers poignant insight into the daily sacrifices and heroism of medical workers. Michele Harper was a teenager with a learner's permit when she volunteered to drive her older brother, John, to an emergency room in Silver Spring, Md., so he could be treated for a bite wound . Indeed, Dr. Emily revealed the reasons behind why Dr. Sharkey left in a tweet on February 21, 2020. The bosses know were getting sick, but won't let us take off until it gets to the point where we literally can't breathe. I knew that I would do well enough in school so that I would be independent emotionally and financially, that I wouldn't feel dependent on a man the way that I saw the dynamic in my home, where my mother was dependent upon the financial resources of my father. And the police did show up. One of the grocery clerks who came in, a young Black woman, told me she didnt know if she had the will to live anymore. No. I always tell people, it's really great. For example, the face shield I talk about is different than the one we have now because we had a donation from an outside company. We know, in medicine, people can make their own decisions. So they wanted us to prove it and get the drugs out. She graduated from STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK / HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER AT STONY BROOK in 2005. The emergency room is a place of intensitya place of noise and colors and human drama. 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