Black maternal mortality, dismissal experience, preeclampsia, building trust with a patient who has been harmed by medical racism.

HIV prevention (PrEP), MSM of color in Southern context, stigma, disclosure ethics.

Gun violence victim, violence intervention, trauma-informed care, moral injury.

West Tennessee Delta county patient, hospital closure, specialist access in cotton belt.

Tennessee ties, Memphis community health experience, health equity commitment, why UTHSC.

Black patients in Memphis — and nationally — are documented to receive less pain management, have their symptoms dismissed more often, and present later in disease course partly due to prior negative experiences. This is evidence-based.

The "Serena Williams effect" describes the phenomenon where even the most powerful Black women are dismissed in clinical settings. Know this research when discussing maternal health.

Your first job with a patient who has been dismissed before is to prove through your behavior that this encounter will be different. Then prove it.

HIV has shifted geographically — the South (particularly the Deep South and Mid-South) now has the highest rates of new diagnoses in the US.

In Southern culture, HIV is heavily stigmatized — especially in Black and religious communities. PrEP access, disclosure, and care engagement are all shaped by this stigma.

MSM of color in Memphis face compounded stigma: racial, sexual, and HIV-related. Know intersectionality as a clinical framework.

Haywood County, TN, has among the worst health outcomes in the US. It sits in the cotton belt, historically characterized by extreme racial wealth inequality and medical disinvestment.

Hospital closures in rural West Tennessee continue — know what this means for patients with chronic disease who lose their only local facility.

The Mississippi Delta's health crisis does not stop at the state line — it extends into West Tennessee's cotton belt counties.

"Since 2011 I've sat on MMI panels across Canada, the USA, and the UK — scoring thousands of candidates across medicine, dentistry, PA, and nursing. Universal MMI is built on everything I've learned sitting on the other side of that table."

Memphis's infant mortality reflects a convergence of structural racism (historical medical segregation, neighborhood disinvestment), poverty, inadequate prenatal care access, Black maternal dismissal in clinical settings, and high rates of preterm birth driven by chronic stress and environmental exposures.

TennCare is Tennessee's Medicaid program, one of the earliest managed Medicaid programs. Tennessee has not expanded to the ACA's 138% poverty level threshold, leaving approximately 300,000 adults in a coverage gap — earning too much for TennCare but too little for marketplace subsidies.

The South now accounts for more than half of new HIV diagnoses in the US. Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida have the highest rates. MSM of color, rural communities, and poverty-affected populations drive the epidemic. Stigma, limited PrEP access, and lack of coverage compound the crisis.

Yes. As Tennessee's public medical school system, approximately 85% of the entering class are Tennessee residents.

Recent entering classes have median MCAT around 509 and median GPA around 3.65. UTHSC values Tennessee ties, community health experience, and primary care commitment.

Regional One Health (formerly The Med) is Memphis's public safety-net hospital and the UTHSC teaching hospital. It is Shelby County's Level I trauma center and serves Memphis's most vulnerable patients. UTHSC students train on the front lines of Memphis's health inequity there.

The Mississippi Delta's agricultural poverty belt extends into west Tennessee's Shelby, Haywood, Tipton, and Lauderdale counties. These counties have high rates of chronic disease, limited hospital access, and poverty-driven health disparities similar to the Delta itself.

Acknowledge the harm directly: "It sounds like you've had experiences where you weren't heard. That's not okay, and I want to make sure our time together is different." Then demonstrate it: ask open-ended questions, listen without interrupting, explain your clinical reasoning, respond to her concerns before presenting your plan.