[music]
Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. This is The Takeaway where we're having a party.
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The Doc is in
And she fixes you up
If you're a toy
Then you're in luck
Melissa Harris-Perry: A kid's party because today, Disney's Doc McStuffins is 10 years old.
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Melissa Harris-Perry: If you have kids, you already know Doc McStuffins. Created by Chris Nee for Disney, she's a seven-year-old Black girl doctor with a stay-at-home chef dad, a medical doctor mom, and an adorable little brother, and also a backyard full of toys. Toys that come down with injuries and illnesses like squishy-itis or gunk-inside-a-tude or stuff-fully-osis, but never fear because Doc is there to hear their concerns, make a diagnosis, fix them up, and sing songs along the way. Back in 2015, Doc even got a chance to visit the White House where she met First lady Michelle Obama.
[crosstalk]
First lady Michelle Obama: Doc takes such amazing care of all of her friends. Having shared the dance floor with her, I know she can bust a move.
Doc McStuffins: I sure can.
First lady Michelle Obama: Doc, in of everything you did to help an injured toy here today, we want to ask if you'll be the official White House toy doctor.
Doc McStuffins: Yes, I will. Thank you.
First lady Michelle Obama: Everyone, the Doc is in.
Melissa Harris-Perry: For a full decade, Doc McStuffins has been inspiring kids to see themselves as problem-solvers, care providers, and maybe even future doctors. She's been more than a little inspirational for some adults as well. Dr. Myiesha Taylor is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, but in the decade I've known Dr. Taylor, I've only ever called her one thing, the real Doc McStuffins. In fact, the Disney character's mom is even named after Dr. Taylor.
We sat down to talk about this beloved character and to think about the real-world realities of being a Black woman doctor, especially when studies continue to show that fewer than 3% of physicians are Black women. We started with the Artemis Medical Society.
Dr. Myiesha Taylor: The Artemis Medical Society is a group of women physicians of color that have come together to help support each other, nurture each other, and help to diversify medicine by way of creating or helping to participate in the creation of the next generation of diverse positions.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Certainly, we knew that was important when you and I first started having conversations about this, I guess, nearly a decade ago, but then COVID-19 and the massive disproportionate impact on Black and Latino communities. Talk to me about what COVID-19 has taught you and how maybe Artemis in the work that you all were doing prior to the pandemic, did it provide you would some of that support in this critical time?
Dr. Myiesha Taylor: It did. I think that we are all well aware of the disparate care that people of color receive in our country due to various reasons, social determinants of health, implicit biases in medicine. All of that is highlighted or was highlighted with COVID. Anything that adversely affects a population, it hits Black and brown communities even harder. COVID was no exception.
Melissa Harris-Perry: When it comes to spaces where, for example, implicit bias seems to have the largest effect, emergency medicine is really one of them where you often don't have an opportunity to have known anything about your patients prior. Sometimes they come in and aren't even in a circumstance where they can speak or they may be in some of the hardest moments of their lives and you are providing care. Why did you want to be an ER doctor?
Dr. Myiesha Taylor: My father, when I was in high school, he was killed. He was the second person killed in the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict. At that time, it was very difficult to get information. They didn't know who people were when they came in because of all the chaos. As I watched that unfold, although I wanted to be a physician since I was a little girl, I didn't really decide on an acute care specialty until that happened, and emergency medicine epitomizes acute care.
Melissa Harris-Perry: When I hear you say I knew I wanted to be a doctor from being a little girl, this is one of the things I have found definitely about my physician friends that is quite than say my lawyer friends. Lawyers maybe figured out in middle school, high school, maybe even after college, but doctors, how is it that you all know at like seven? You really are Doc McStuffins at this.
Dr. Myiesha Taylor: My mom was a nurse and my grandmother was a nurse. Interestingly, my grandmother was a nurse and she was born in East Texas and left East Texas to go to Los Angeles, California and she didn't even have a high school diploma. She worked her way up, became an LVN, and had a successful home health business. When my mom came along, my grandmother told my mother, "Listen, you have to take it to the next level. You have to be a registered nurse. Go get a bachelor's in nursing and be better than me, basically, in this field." Of course, Melissa, when I came along, I don't know that I had a choice. [chuckles] I was raised up in a medical family for the most part taking care of people.
My mom said the same thing to me. Nursing is difficult. My mom, she died several years ago, but she told me about nursing and for women and women of color in any profession in nursing was no exception. She endured a lot of abuse that she thought would be mitigated if I became a physician. I think that she was very much on board with me becoming a physician because she felt like that would offer a better experience for me in medicine.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I think you have three children. Do they all know they have to be doctors too?
Dr. Myiesha Taylor: It's so interesting. I don't know if you remember Haley, my oldest. She's 19 and she graduates from SMU Law in eight weeks and she will be the youngest woman in US history to get a law degree, and the youngest Black person in US history to get a law degree in eight leagues. She's doing well. [chuckles] I also have two other kids. Hannah was the baby. Haley's 19. Hannah was the baby and Hannah is now 14. When Doc came out, she's just barely in preschool, three, four years old. Now she is a sophomore at Texas Woman's University. Granted she's a radically talented student--
Melissa Harris-Perry: [chuckles] At 14?
Dr. Myiesha Taylor: Right, but still she's doing well. She's doing well. She's thinking about becoming a physician, but unlike me at three, four, five years old, she's not completely sold yet. Maybe because I'm a physician and she sees all the good, the bad, and the ugly, and she's like, "I'm not really sure I want to participate in what you do, mom."
Melissa Harris-Perry: Has someone tested the water at your house because these children are definitely not regular, they're exceptional? [chuckles]
Dr. Myiesha Taylor: Thank you. [chuckles]
Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me though about the ways that representation matters. When you talk about the two of us having young daughters at the same time when Doc McStuffins was all the everything, and all that Doc has been I think now for a whole generation of young people, why does representation matter?
Dr. Myiesha Taylor: It matters in ways that people don't often appreciate. We know that you could see her, you can be her. If you see people doing something that looks like you, it may inspire you to realize that you could consider that as well. I think that an impact that's often understated is the effect that it has on society at large, particularly people who are not a part of that group. When I walk in the room as a Black emergency medicine physician and a white family and white children see me after watching Doc McStuffins, they now have an opinion and thoughts that this is normal, and I don't have to convince them that I belong in this space.
I think that that's something that's often not really articulated frequently because we focus on the children of color that are watching it and seeing themselves in that image, but this is an image that transcends race. This is an image that's good for America. It's good for all of our children, all of our people because we do need diverse physicians because we are a diverse country.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Dr. Myiesha Taylor, the real Doc McStuffins, board-certified emergency medicine physician specialist. Thanks so much for coming and talking about Doc with me here on The Takeaway.
Dr. Myiesha Taylor: Thank you for having me, Melissa.
[00:09:40] [END OF AUDIO]
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