Never mind that he was a white guy, and that Harris is Black and female. Never mind that no one in her family was a doctor or had any idea how to become one. Welby was her role model, and she was determined to follow his path. “He not only took care of his patients inside the exam room but also outside,” says Dr. Harris, who grew up in Bluefield, West Virginia, and now lives outside Atlanta. “He cared about their families and communities. I saw that physicians had a platform to make a difference, and that spoke to me.” Harris knew one thing: If Marcus Welby could be a doctor, so could she. Harris did become a doctor. And then some. Dr. Harris received her medical degree from the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown, West Virginia, and became a board-certified psychiatrist with a focus on trauma and children in the foster care and juvenile system. She has since acquired more than two decades of experience as a national health policy advocate and is a visiting professor at the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry in New York City. Perhaps most impressive in a list of impressive accomplishments: She’s the first Black woman to hold the role of president of the American Medical Association, a position she held until June. “Decades ago, Black physicians could not join the AMA,” says Dr. Harris. In 2009, the AMA’s president at the time, Ronald Davis, MD, apologized for this harm. Now is a critical time for this kind of information. According to The COVID Tracking Project, which was started by The Atlantic magazine, Black Americans are dying from the novel coronavirus at 2.3 times the rate of other groups. Dr. Harris sees this as an opportunity to educate. “This is a time of uncertainty, a lot of stress and anxiety, but there are things we can do,” she says. “One of the many reasons I’m so excited about the opportunity here at Everyday Health is because it’s about being a trusted, reputable source of information, and it has a commitment to engaging all communities. “Certainly COVID-19 has brought into stark reality a lot of gaps in our health infrastructure in our country, but clearly issues around health inequities have also been brought into stark reality,” she continues. “And as we think about these inequities, we need to think about them as avoidable — meaning, they don’t have to be so. And we need to think about them in the context, of course, of social determinants of health. Access to transportation, affordable housing, employment, education, access to fresh fruits and vegetables. But I think it’s critical for us to look even further upstream, and to look at issues around structural racism, and bias, and discrimination.” She’s also looking forward to using the Everyday Health platform to help change the narrative around mental health. “It’s okay to not be okay,” she says. “I thought it was so important for Mrs. Obama to say over the summer that she’s experiencing symptoms of sadness and depression and anxiety.” This is especially important for healthcare workers, who typically want to help others but may not want to admit when they’re struggling. Dr. Harris recalls how happy she was seeing a tweet a few months ago in which a physician admitted to being in therapy. Other doctors then shared their own struggles with mental illness or depression. “COVID clearly elevated that issue, and it gave some license for physicians to just say, ‘We’re no longer going to hide it.’ “For so long mental health was an afterthought, if it was thought of at all,” she says. “But the data is clear that if you have another chronic condition like diabetes and hypertension, your mental health can impact your course of illness. If you had a major surgery and you are depressed, that can impact your course. There is no health without mental health.” And how does Dr. Harris take care of herself? “I have a strong family support system,” she says. She’s also learned how to compartmentalize and focus on wins rather than losses. “I hang on to the joy of the work and the privilege of the work of taking care of patients and making someone’s life better and making them feel better or family systems work better.” Marcus Welby would be proud.
