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. She was young. For me, school was a refuge. Before meeting Ms. Shimizu, Ms. Harper was linked to the filmmaker Daniel Leeb, sometimes inaccurately described in print as her husband. And even clinically, when I'm not, like when I worked at Einstein Hospital in Philadelphia, it's a similar environment. It was traumatic brain injury, and that's why she presented with altered consciousness that day. "We met when we were 15," Mr. Leeb recently recalled . And my mother said, well, she didn't want to pursue charges if it meant my brother was going to be incarcerated. After a childhood in Washington, D.C., she studied at Harvard University and the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. Apparently, Dr. Michele Sharkey has found love with none other than the brother of a fellow coworker, Dr. Emily Thomas. I love the discussion. She received a Bachelor of Science at Bowling Green State University and a Masters of Human Science and Doctorate from National College of Chiropractic. And you wrote that before the recent protests and demonstrations, which have prompted a lot more focus on the nation's experience with slavery and racial injustice. This is FRESH AIR. The Wisconsin Book Festival and the UW-Madison All of Us research program collaborate to host a talk by Dr. Michele Harper. Dr. 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. But I think there's something in this book about what you get out of treating these patients, the insight of this center of emergency medicine that you talk about. And it was a devastating moment because it just felt that there was no way out and that we - we identified with my brother as being our protector - were now all being blamed for the violence. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in . Our mission is to get Southern California reading and talking. We want to know if the patient's OK, if they made it. All of them have a lesson of some kind. 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. But that is the mission, should they choose to follow it. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a . And you give a pretty dispiriting picture of the place in some ways. And as we know from history, this is a lifetime commitment to structural change. HARPER: No. And so when I was ordering her tests, I didn't need to order liver function tests. She went on to attend Harvard, where she met her husband. DAVIES: You describe being 7 years old and trying to understand this. She now works at Virginia Warren County Veterinary Clinic. You can find out more and change our default settings with Cookies Settings. We Hope she misses her camera days and returns to Michigan and the show "Dr. Pol.". Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Do you think of police in general as being in the helping fields? It relates to structural racism. I want you out of here." Email this page. They have no role in a febrile seizure. She is affiliated with Saint Francis Medical Center. Her story begins with an introduction to her dysfunctional family, her childhood of physical abuse, and her . Photo courtesy of Penguin Random House. But I was really concerned that this child had been beaten and was having traumatic brain injury and that's why she wasn't waking up. DAVIES: You know, I'm wondering if the fact that you spent so much of your childhood in a place where you didn't feel safe and there was no adult or professional that you encountered who could relieve that, who could rescue you, who could make you safe, do you think that that in some way made you a more empathetic doctor, somebody who is more inclined to find that person who is in need of help that they somehow can't quite identify or ask for? As an effective ER physician, br. He did not - well, no medical complaints. Of the doctors and nurses on duty, I was the only Black person. Emergency room doctor Michele Harper brings her memoir, The Beauty in Breaking, to the L.A. Times Book Club June 29. Share this page on Twitter. Once I finished the book, I realized the whole time Id been learning.. What's it like not to have follow-up, not to know what became of these folks? Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Make an appointment by calling (302)644-8880. It's people outside of your departments. DAVIES: Right. This was not one of those circumstances. I feel a responsibility to serve my patients. Harper's first 10 years practicing medicine from an ER in New York City to another in Philadelphia have taught her the . He was in no distress. DAVIES: Yeah. Some salient memories that just remind me of the insecurity of it - there would always be some kind of physical violence. Was it OK? And, you know, of note, Dominic, the patient, and I were the two darkest-skinned people in the department. And I didn't get the job. I had nothing objective to go on. 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. There wasn't a doctor assigned yet to her, she only had a nurse. He graduated from UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE in 1995. And there was no pneumonia. Though we both live in the same area, COVID-19 kept us from meeting in a studio. Then I started the medical path, and it beat the words out of me. She was a Black patient. 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 involves a 22-month-old baby who was brought in who apparently had had a seizure. So they're coming in just for a medical screening exam. But there has to be that agreement and understanding or nothing will be done about it. And they were summoned, probably, a couple of times. Her physical exam was fine. Harper shares her poignant stories from the ER with Mitchell Kaplan. You know, ER doctors and nurses have a lot of dealings with police, and there's a lot of talk about reforming police these days, you know, defunding police in the wake of protests of police killings of African Americans. Dr. Michele Harper is an emergency medicine physician. But she wasn't waking up, so I knew I was going to have to transfer her anyway. The 52-year-old, best known for her appearances in Embarrassing Bodies and on ITV's This Morning, has moved out of the . And that continued until, I guess, your high school years, because you actually drove your brother to the emergency room. 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 . It was crying out for help, and the liver test was kind of an intuition on your part. I don't know what happened to her afterwards. A graduate of . But, and perhaps most critically, people have to be held accountable when it comes to racism. He has bodily integrity that should be respected. HARPER: First of all, shout out to Lincoln and Lincoln residency because that was one of - professionally, that was one of the most rewarding times of my education and career. It's your patients. Later, I learned they hired a white male nurse instead. She was being sexually harassed at work and the customers treated her horribly. I was the one to take a stand, to see if she was okay and to ask him to leave the room because she didn't feel safe, and she wasn't under arrest. It's many people. So I started the transfer. They are allowed to, you know, when certain criteria are met. They stayed . 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. He is affiliated with medical facilities Baptist Health Floyd and Clark Memorial Health. If you have a question for her, please leave it in the comments and she may respond then. That was just being in school. Her book, The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir. If we had more people in medicine from poor or otherwise disenfranchised backgrounds, we would have better physicians, physicians who could empathize more. So I ran downstairs and called the police. She was rushed into the department unconscious, not clear why but assuming a febrile seizure, a seizure that children - young children can have when they have a fever. 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. They speak English and Spanish. Clinically, all along the way - I prefer clinically to work in environments that are lower-resourced financially, immigrant, underrepresented people of color. She graduated from STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK / HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER AT STONY BROOK in 2005. Michele Harper, the author of The Beauty in Breaking, will be in conversation with Times reporter Marissa Evans at the Los Angeles Times Book Club. 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. It was important for me to see her. So the police just left. It's not graphic, but it is troubling. But the hospital, if I had not intervened, would have been complicit. Join us for an enlightening discussion with Dr. Michele Harper as she highlights the lessons learned on her inspiring personal journey of discovery and . Nobody answered. DAVIES: We're going to take another break here. Dr. Michele Harper. Situations, experiences, can break us in ways that if we make another set of decisions, we won't heal or may even perpetuate violence. And I felt that if I just left the room and didn't ask that I would be ignoring her pain. You were the attending person who was actually her supervisor, but she thought she could take this into her own hands. What was it like getting acclimated to that community and the effect it had on the patients that you saw? But there was one time that I called. Her book, The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir. Weve bought into a collective delusion that healthcare is a privilege and not a right. I mean, I feel that that is their mission. Its been an interesting learning curve, Im quicker on the uptake about choosing who gets my energy. 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. The popular couple has been together for over two decades, and . I mean, mainly we get that to make sure there's no infection causing the fever. You got into Harvard, did well there and went to medical school. I mean, she said that she had been through a lot. So in that way, it's hard. And also because of the pain I saw and felt in my home, it was also important for me to be of service and help to other people so that they could find their own liberation as well. 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. Everyone just sat there. She said, well, we do this all the time. But because of socialization, implicit bias and other effects of racism and discrimination, it doesn't happen that way. Original release. And it's a very easy exam. If we had more healthcare providers with differing physical abilities and health challenges, who didn't come from wealthy families that would be a strong start. DAVIES: I'm going to take a break here. Monday, 8/22/2022 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm . 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. 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. TV doctor Dawn Harper has split from her husband of 20 years Graham Isaac. Harper tells her story through the lives of people she encounters on stretchers and gurneys patients who are scared, vulnerable, confused and sometimes impatient to the point of rage. Michele Harper An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central . So it was always punctuated by violence. This is FRESH AIR. And there was - there was just something about it that made me more concerned. Michele Harper. She remained stuporous. I mean, there was the mask on your face. How did you see your future then? And then if we found it and we're supposed to get it out, then we'd have to put a tube into his stomach and put in massive amounts of liquid so that he would eventually pass it. We have to examine why this is happening. For example: at hospitals in big cities, why doesnt the staff reflect the diversity of its community? That's an important point. And your mother eventually remarried. Dr. Harper reflects on her journey from navigating a complicated family in Washington D.C. to attending Harvard, where she pursued emergency medicine and met her husband. I mean, was it difficult? . HARPER: Yes, 100%. When youre Black in medicine, there are constant battles. And I put it that way, there was another fight, because there was always some kind of fight where my brother was trying to help my mother. Join us for an enlightening discussion with Dr. Michele Harper as she highlights the lessons learned on her inspiring personal journey of discovery and self-reflection as written in her New York . Dr. Michele Harper is an emergency room physician and the author of The Beauty in Breaking, a memoir of service, transformation, and self-healing. 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. Shane, Dr. Michelle's spouse, is a fireman and the Deputy Conservation Officer. Copyright 2020 NPR. We know, in medicine, people can make their own decisions. I'm the one who answered the door, and I was a child. And we have to be able to move on. HARPER: That's a great question, and I am glad we're having the conversations and that there is space for the conversations. From there, Harper went to an emergency room in North Philadelphia (which had a volume of more than 95,000 patients a year) and then across town to yet another facility, where she had fewer bureaucratic obligations and more time for her true calling: seeing patients. 419 following. 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