Editor’s note: Time Magazine recently wrote about the devastating shortage of Black doctors in America. In honor of Black History Month, we’re highlighting people from the “second wave” of Black physicians to practice within Roper St. Francis Healthcare’s hospitals. They share stories of resilience and hopes for a more diverse future in medicine.
Dr. Courtney Fisher emphasizes the significance of diverse representation in medicine by comparing it to cooking.
“We may be eating the same fish,” he said. “But you know how to cook it differently. And that’s the beauty of living among and learning from people who are different from you.”
His experiences as a Black physician in a majority white field and as an immigrant in America deeply shaped his journey in medicine. He never doubted his abilities, even in the face of adversity, he said.
“It was a culture shock,” Dr. Fisher said. “But there has been a pattern of resilience throughout my education and career. There’s no such word as ‘can’t’ in my family.”
Culture shock
Dr. Fisher is a retired urologist who practiced in Charleston and at Roper St. Francis Healthcare facilities for 40 years.
He was born and raised in the Trelawny parish of Jamaica with a sprawling banana field separating his childhood home from the community hospital.
The picturesque scene was a stark contrast to his new reality when he moved with his family to New York City in the 1960s. He was 10 years old.
“It was traumatic,” he said. “I was two years younger than my peers because I was two grades ahead. And, of course, I spoke with a dialect unique to my country.”
He noticed the cultural differences.
In Jamaica, kids could use machetes at school to clean the headmasters [or, principal] cane fields at recess. When he brought one to school in the U.S. to stave off the older boys threatening to steal his allowance, he was reprimanded by his father.
“He told me I could not do that in this country,” he said. “I was too young to understand why my machete was such a big deal. I was not going to be bullied by my peers. I had no intention of using it, I just wanted to make a statement.”
Called to practice
Dr. Fisher didn’t always know that he wanted to be a doctor, but he was raised by his family and community to believe that he could accomplish whatever he set out to do.
“In Jamaica, you can be whatever you want to be,” he said. “I grew up with all Black teachers and Black policemen. I saw representation everywhere. Nobody would tell us we couldn’t be something because of our background or skin color.”
His early exposures to healthcare drew him to medicine.
He recalled trekking through the banana field when his father had to be hospitalized for a bad case of gastroenteritis. His own positive experience undergoing minor surgery as a child also influenced him at an early age, he said.
“They took good care of me and my family,” he said. “It was just wonderful.”
Becoming a doctor
After pursuing interests in biology and occupational therapy during his early college years, Dr. Fisher ultimately decided to study medicine at SUNY Downstate Medicine Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
As one of 18 non-white minorities in a class of 225 students, including 12 medical students and 6 PhD students, he began to experience unfairness and discrimination.
“Some of the students came from generations of medical professionals,” he said. “They had access to so much information that could have greatly benefited the rest of us, but they would not share it.”
After finishing his two years of general surgery residency, he returned to SUNY Downstate Medical Center to complete the urology specialty program. He was the first Black urologist to graduate from the program.
Arriving in Charleston
After he completed training, Dr. Fisher wanted to go back to Jamaica. But life had other plans. It was through Dr. Allan Rashford that Dr. Fisher came to Charleston in 1983.
“This was my first exposure to Southern Black America,” Dr. Fisher said. “I found the Geechee dialect to be very similar to the dialect spoken in the Caribbean. Though I was reluctant to come at first, I thought, ‘OK. I’ll give it a try.’”
Internal Medicine Specialist Dr. Rashford began what is now known as the “second wave” of Black physicians to practice at Roper Hospital and Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital (formerly known as St. Francis Xavier Hospital). He recruited other Black physicians, including as Dr. Fisher and General Surgeon Dr. Sam Hazell, to join him in Charleston.
Before then, only a handful of Black physicians had practiced at those hospitals, including Dr. Mitty Lambright, the husband-and-wife duo Drs. Catherine and Turner McCottry, as well as a few others.
It wasn’t long before Drs. Fisher, Hazell and Rashford arrived that Black physicians faced restrictions on where they could work. Black patients also had faced restrictions on where and when they could receive care.
“The first Black physicians to practice in Charleston were not allowed to work in just any hospital,” Dr. Fisher said. “It was totally segregated.”
Black physicians and nurses had been serving the community’s Black patients at McClennan-Banks Memorial Hospital since 1897. The hospital closed in 1976 – more than a decade after segregation was outlawed and just four years before Dr. Fisher arrived in Charleston.
Breaking down barriers
Though Black physicians legally were allowed to practice at all hospitals by that time, Dr. Fisher met unique challenges.
He missed his first departmental meeting because nobody informed him that it would be taking place.
“We are out to get you,” one of his white colleagues joked.
Everyone laughed.
“Coming to Charleston was a major culture shock,” Dr. Fisher said. “Not just among my colleagues, but with some of the patients as well.”
He recalled a night when a patient was bleeding uncontrollably, and the patient’s doctor was no longer at the hospital. Dr. Fisher understood the problem and offered to take care of him. The patient, who was white, refused.
Dr. Fisher and the clinical staff eventually persuaded the patient to allow him to help.
“He was not used to seeing Black physicians,” Dr. Fisher said. “The community had been so limited by inequalities that it prevented them from believing a Black person could be a physician and work in these institutions.”
Dr. Fisher persevered. He found solace in the support of fellow Black physicians and the trust he built in the Black community.
“That’s how we survived,” he said.
Through his dedication to providing compassionate, quality care, Dr. Fisher earned the respect and admiration of his patients, who viewed him as a beacon of hope in a system that historically overlooked their needs.
“They put a certain trust in me, knowing that I would do the best I could for them,” he said.
Striving for diverse representation
As Dr. Fisher reflected on his experiences, he underscored the importance of representation in healthcare and the need for systemic change.
In the U.S., racial and ethnic minorities have higher rates of chronic disease, obesity and premature death than white people, according to this National Library of Medicine article.
A JAMA study found that minority patients greatly benefit from having minority doctors. On average, every 10 percent increase in the county-level number of Black primary care physicians was associated with increasing the life expectancy among Black people by 31 days.
“There is fear and anxiety among patients,” he said. “They need physicians they can trust, and that requires diverse representation.”
Such a change starts with education, Dr. Fisher said.
“Something has to be done that’s better for the community,” he said.
In medicine, listening is a key to success, Dr. Fisher said. Now retired, he stresses the importance for all providers to listen and understand the needs of others. His legacy at Roper St. Francis Healthcare is engrained in the patients he reached on such a level.
“I have to be able to look at somebody else and say, ‘I understand you,’” he said. “Just as they should be able to look at me and say the same. You must listen.”