A long-time faculty member at Wayne State University School of Medicine has filed a civil rights lawsuit, alleging he was discriminated against because he spoke out about the dangerous racial bias projected onto Black patients in health care.
Despite serving as the interim chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the institution in Detroit, Michigan, and applying to fill the position full-time, Dr. Stanley Berry, who’d served a combined three decades as part of the Wayne State faculty, says he was skipped over in retaliation for his advocacy for vulnerable communities.
In the lawsuit obtained by Atlanta Black Star, Berry points to a “retaliatory failure” to hire him when he served as interim chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology after he spoke out about a resident sending a pregnant high-risk patient home who was in severe pain.
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Berry, a Black man, says although in 2021 he stepped in and assumed the interim role when the position was suddenly left vacant, he was passed over by the university’s administration for a white and “less qualified” candidate.
Berry has sued the Wayne State University Board of Governors, School of Medicine Dean Wael Sakr, Dr. Satinder Kaur and Dr. Patricia Wilkerson-Uddyback.
Executive vice chair of the department Dr. Lanetta Coleman told Berry she saw how a resident engaged a Black patient with a history of preterm birth at DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital. Coleman pointed to this incident as an example of how “unrecognized bias can adversely affect patient care and clinical outcomes.”
Berry, in turn, asked Dr. Satinder Kaur, the director of the medical school’s residency program, January 2022 memo to this message to the residents:
“It is not acceptable to send a pregnant woman in the third…
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