Film exploring race and medical care inspires VCU medical students to make a change

RICHMOND, Va. -- A documentary that explores how the color of a person's skin could impact the quality of their medical care was featured at VCU.

The film, The Color of Care, was produced by Oprah Winfrey and the Smithsonian Channel.

Dozens of community members and VCU staff and students showed up to watch the movie.

The film shows how people of color often suffer from systemically sub-standard healthcare in the United States and how the COVID-19 pandemic brought to light the unfortunate consequences of the disparity.

"Health inequities still exist today within the U.S. healthcare system. This film provides an unveiling or an uncovering of some of the things that families encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic with health systems across the country," Sheryl Garland, the Chief of Health Impact and the Executive Director of Health Equity at the VCU Health System, said.

Ike Osuorah and Jewel Washington said they are looking to use their influence in the medical field to find solutions.

"What they were saying in there is, well, your health is primarily, in this country, unfortunately, determined by your zip code," Osuorah, a VCU medical student, said.

The film was both eye-opening and affirming for the future doctors.

"It's breathtaking, in a bad way. The fact that it doesn't matter how much money you make, what neighborhood you might move to, what education level you've got. It's the mere fact that your skin is Black, your skin is Brown, that you might not make it, that you're not going to get quality care and you can't do anything about it, and you can't do anything about it. It's based on how people perceive you. And that's just crazy in every context," Washington, another VCU medical student, said.

"We have the opportunity at this point and time to make a difference," Osuorah said.

For real lasting positive change to happen, the medical students believe it will take intentional effort from everyone in the healthcare industry.

"One thing that I do think that I took away that I'll be putting into my career going forward is kind of holding each other accountable. There is a lot of work to be done in healthcare," Osuorah said.

The two said the movie and the efforts made by VCU to communicate the problem and close the disparity gap are just a small start to addressing a very big and complicated problem.

"It is getting integrated into our curriculum a little bit more. So you're seeing a lot of it but they don't really talk about what we can do as next steps. We're talking about it and I'm really grateful that we are but I just really hope that it doesn't stop there," Washington said.