Changing Perceptions, One Webinar At A Time
Facey’s Black Physician Council kicks off a series of conversations addressing health inequity with a COVID-19 vaccine town hall.
The more Daniel Lewis, M.D., read about the roll-out of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, the more worried he became—with good reason. “A major part of the Black community has a great deal of angst in terms of acquiring the vaccine,” he says. “The way the vaccine works is that we need to have 70 percent of our population vaccinated in order to reach herd immunity, and we will not get there if a sizable cohort decides not to get inoculated.”
As chair of the Black Physicians Council (BPC) at Facey Medical Group, Dr. Lewis felt a need to dispel the rumors and misinformation about the vaccine. He and his fellow BPC members decided to host a webinar on Zoom to talk about the virus, offer details on the vaccine, provide their own testimonials as to why we they were vaccinated and close with a Q&A to answer the community’s questions.
“The Black community trusts their Black doctors and nurses,” says Dr. Lewis. “Even though Black patients have a 2.8 percent higher death rate than whites, the cynicism within the Black community about health care in general is palpable. The webinar was our latest effort to remind Black people they need to take care of their health.”
The message was well received. Over 200 people logged on to watch the webinar on February 6, with the Q&A continuing for nearly an hour after the prerecorded part of the presentation.
A recording of the entire event was posted to Facey’s YouTube channel and over 200 people have watched it there as well. Facey has sent outreach letters to patients who identify as Black or African-American, inviting them to watch it and look for future conversations to follow.
“This wasn’t our first effort, and it won’t be our last,” says Dr. Lewis. “I want to do all we can to bring the health inequity wall down.”
Learn about the Facey BPC and watch the presentation by visiting: www.facey.com/bpc.