7 Books That Helped Me Find Solace and Define My Purpose as a Black Medical Student

Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Coates’ National Book Award-winning work focuses on Black subjectivity vis-à-vis racism in America. It gave me a new lens through which I could process the world around me. It is part love letter: An ode to Black people, Coates’ friend Prince Jones, Coates’ son, and Howard University (my alma mater). I felt a sense of pride as I read about his love for Howard, the African Diaspora’s diversity so well represented on campus, the student body’s rich history of activism, and the place it occupies as “The Mecca” of Black America.

As beautiful a love letter this book is, it is also a tragedy. Coates’ friend Prince dies at the hand of police. His death reinforced my and many young Black men’s biggest fear: to get in trouble with the police while driving. This fear was impressed upon me with “the talk” from my uncle and aunt on my 18th birthday. Be careful, they taught me. No accolades can truly protect us from the reality of police brutality, for heavy is racism’s plunder.

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s Education by Mychal Denzel Smith

While Coates acknowledges his positionality in a society where markers of difference shape oppressive experiences, the Black male coming of age story that does it best is “Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching.” Similarly to Coates, Smith describes his coming of age and to consciousness in an America that always oppressed Black people, and the refuge he found in attending a historically Black college, Howard’s near-deathly rival, Hampton University. Most incisive is his introspective take on how he may have contributed to oppressing others, notably cis-hetero Black women, and LGBTQ Black people, both directly, and via his cultural consumptions in the forms of hip-hop and comedy. He makes these points without engaging in self-loathing, anti-Black rhetoric often touted by advocates of respectability politics. He also makes himself vulnerable, shining a light on his own experience with mental illness.

Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together at the Cafeteria? and Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Tatum

Renowned psychologist Beverly Tatum’s book, originally published in 1997, offers detailed explanations grounded in social theory and psychology research of key concepts surrounding race and racism in America. She focuses on racial identity development for different racial groups, and how it influences how we interact with the world. Her writing takes into consideration factors such a class, and others often ignored in the mainstream, like colorism. This book gave me language and tools to engage in meaningful conversations about the psychology and daily manifestations of racism with the goal of effecting change. 

Americanah by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah is the fictional story of Ifemelu, a young woman who emigrates from Nigeria to America and must navigate the harrowing complexities of race and class in America as a new African immigrant. The novel recounts Ifemelu’s Igbo upbringing in Nigeria and her quest for higher education and opportunity in America. It juxtaposes the African Immigrant struggles in America and in the UK, and the nuances related to their complicated histories and relationships vis-à-vis colonization and neocolonialism.

Ifemelu’s experience reminded me of an often-dormant dimension of my experience, having grown up in Cameroon and immigrated to the United States. Much like Ifemelu, the concept of race in the American sense was distant to me before my first trip here. Many personal experiences have since informed my understanding of racism and classism, including attending Howard. I strongly identified with Ifemelu’s gig as a race-blogger explaining anti-Blackness and structural racism.

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

Hunger is the soul-crushing narrative of Gay’s rape, her experiences as a Haitian-American daughter of immigrants, and struggles with mental health. It is a searing commentary on race, gender and sex politics, and most importantly, the policing and ridiculing of people with large bodies in every aspect of life. Gay recounts her experience seeking healthcare, having been as heavy as 600 pounds, and the hostility-by-design (intentional or not) of healthcare settings: too-small blood pressure cuffs and scales, her doctors’ fixation on her weight, often unrelated to the reason for her visits.

Gay later published an essay describing her experience seeking and undergoing bariatric surgery, “The Body that Understands What Fullness Is.” Published while I was on a bariatric surgery rotation, I excitedly shared with colleagues. The mixed reactions of my medical colleagues further proved her point: that we in healthcare can be insensitive to what people with larger bodies experience, sometimes blinded by our anti-fat bias.

Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination by Alondra Nelson

Body and Soul is a comprehensive account of the Black Panther Party’s healthcare activism of the 1970s, including the inner-city free health clinics staffed by clinicians and students, and their free breakfast for children program. They also pioneered rapid genetic screening programs for sickle cell disease among Black people in the face of inertia from the government.

To this day, sickle cell disease is often mentioned when discussing racial disparities in treatment of pain. Often times, narratives of “medication-seeking behavior” are peddled by clinicians, impacting the trust Black patients have in the healthcare system. As a medical student activist, the equitable care of patients with sickle cell disease remains at the forefront. It’s not lost on me that previous generations of medical student activists learned organizing from the Panthers.

Pain: A Political History by Keith Wailoo

Pain shows how pain has been politicized and used as a tool to advance agendas across the political spectrum. Keith Wailoo draws connections between the State’s attitude towards pain, and its reactions to poverty and disability. Whose pain matters? What kind of pain is deserving of relief? He discusses the FDA’s approval of OxyContin and Purdue pharma’s aggressive marketing strategies, which contributed to the opioid epidemic. The framing of attitudes towards pain as a product of a political economy gave me further insights why, for example, Black people’s pain often goes undertreated. I read this as New Haven, where I study medicine, was dubbed the epicenter of the opioid epidemic in Connecticut. As a budding researcher of quality of addiction care, it was fitting.

These seven books cover a wide range of topics, some directly related to health, others more about politics. Altogether, they’ve helped me understand my own place in medicine, informed my approach to patient care and shaped my research endeavors.

Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako is a 4th (out of 5) year medical student at the Yale School of Medicine who grew up in Yaounde, Cameroon. He earned a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering at Howard University and a Masters in Bioengineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also engaged in a research fellowship with the Center for Emergency Care & Policy where he is studying the impact of green spaces on health outcomes as well as quality of addiction care for people with opioid use disorder. He writes about racism and medical education in the medical student magazine “InTraining” and hosts a podcast focusing on health disparities called “Flip The Script.” @MaxJordan_N