In the culmination of the Minority Health Month lecture series, Barbara Ross-Lee, D.O., “took the stand” Thursday afternoon in Irvine Hall for “A Legacy of Health Disparities.”

Four years ago she left OU-COM, where she served as dean from 1993–2001. Ross-Lee, the first black woman to be appointed dean of an American medical school, spoke on the disparities in minority health care and their deep-rooted history in American culture.

“This is like coming home for me,” she told the crowd gathered in Irvine Hall. “You don’t realize how much you appreciate something until you leave it.”

“You’ve got a wonderful school and a wonderful faculty here,” she told the students. “It’s head and shoulders above what other medical schools have. You will be prepared like none other.”

Ross-Lee revealed elements of her past from Detroit, where she was raised in a housing project in the inner city. Dealing with family illnesses and the death of her mother to breast cancer, Ross-Lee assured she was no stranger to disparities in health care.

“I speak from experience,” she said. “I’m serious about osteopathic medicine. I’ve dedicated my life to it.”

Ross-Lee said disparities have existed ever since slavery, when Africans were stripped of their cultures.

“Practically everything that distinguishes man from animals was taken away from them,” she said.

Interestingly enough, infant mortality in blacks was higher during the time of the Jim Crow laws — which maintained the “separate but equal” doctrine for the so-called races — than it was during slavery.

“Black babies were dying at a rate of five to seven times higher than white babies,” she said.

Disparities continue to the present time with an excess death rate of 75,000 African Americans annually in the United States.

“That’s 75,000 deaths each year that are preventable,” she said.

In addition, blacks top the charts in 13 of the 15 leading causes of death in America according to Ross-Lee, who referred to the disturbing numbers as a “scandal” that no one is paying attention to.

Yet she sees hope in the future physicians of OU-COM.

“Let me tell you who will have an impact on it,” she told the students. “You. You are the ones who can make a difference.”

“I personally need you to take advantage of this opportunity, because it’s the only way we can address issues such as the health disparities among minorities,” she told the students. “It’s not about you. It’s about a profession, it’s about medicine. It’s about the patients you serve.”

Using Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, Ross-Lee stressed the sentiment that each individual has his own perspective, derived from past experiences, choices, opportunities, heritage and education. And the more perspectives involved in solving a problem, the better chance of solving it, which according to Ross-Lee, is crucial in the medical world.

“It’s not an affirmative action strategy,” she said. “It’s just a strategy to make science and medicine better. Diversity in a medical school brings unique perspectives to the educational environment and benefits us all.”

“Each of you has the potential to expand medical science,” she told the students. “Each of you brings your own unique and personal perspective.”

Ross-Lee concluded by urging students to take advantage of their opportunity in the medical profession to make a difference and make a positive impact on health-care disparities.

Ross-Lee graduated from Detroit’s Wayne State University in 1965 with a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry. In 1973 she graduated from the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Ross-Lee opened up a family practice in Detroit, which lasted until 1984, when she joined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a consultant on education in the health professions. Ross-Lee was a community representative on the Governor’s Minority Health Advisory Committee for the state of Michigan from 1990 to 1993. In 1991 she was the first osteopathic physician to participate in the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship.