Wondrous Ways To Improve Patient Care For People With Diabetes

A remarkable conversation with Tomesha Campbell, founder of Enhance Black Women's Health Newsletter, explores how her personal experience became her vision to reduce health inequity for women.

Inclusive Diabetes Care includes fostering a sense of being seen and heard. Because there isn’t a singular way to help clients with diabetes feel seen and heard, we reached out to Enhance Black Women's Health to talk with Tomesha Campbell.

Tomesha explained that EBWH addresses implicit bias, enhances DEI practices, and improves patient care at Enhance Black Women's Health. This newsletter is a go-to resource for the latest insights, expert advice, and actionable strategies to foster a more inclusive and supportive healthcare environment.

Welcome to Inclusive Diabetes Care. 

The IDC can help you unpack the invisible barrier to diabetes care: stigma. It offers professional training and the Inclusive Diabetes Care Pyramid, a visual representation and transformative tool that empowers healthcare professionals to see the benefits of inclusion in diabetes care.  

Q. Inclusive Diabetes Care talks about the felt experience of belonging. Can you share some ways healthcare providers can or have made you feel like you belong?

Tomesha: Active listening, which appears simple but isn’t common in my experience. Speaking personally, as a Black woman, I have two medical conditions that took a long time to be diagnosed. The initial primary care provider focused on my weight and suggested that eating more fruits and vegetables was a solution.  Years later, I got the referral and was able to receive a diagnosis that, by the way, had nothing to do with my weight or my diet. 

It is so common for healthcare professionals to pick a “Thing” that they focus on. Weight and food are ‘hot’ right now and appear to be a ‘simple’ fix. The diagnosis will likely be wrong or incomplete if the healthcare provider doesn't listen.

When I feel like I belong, I am given space to ask questions. When I am offered an invitation to speak, it’s validating.”

Megrette: “When you say it that way, it is obvious you will want to talk, learn, and understand your health.”

Tomesha: Growing up, I didn’t go to the doctor. My orientation to medical care was through my grandparents, and when they were growing up, you only went to the doctor when you were very sick. I don’t think that belief has changed much.

A large part of health equity, especailly in diabetes, shifting from a reactive to a proactive stance. If, due to inequity, you believe that you only access healthcare when you are very sick, this is the opposite of preventive medicine used to treat a chronic condition. In diabetes, it is good when nothing is wrong. It allows the focus to shift to explore sustainability. Learning what is hard, what is working, and what would make managing a condition that is 24/7 easier is how to treat a chronic condition. However, when there are problems, the focus is on the problem. It isn’t on how to make a chronic condition like diabetes sustainable. 

Q. Ease is a basic human need, yet many BIPOC folks don't experience it in their lives. What/How can healthcare providers and organizations create a sense of ease at a medical session for the BIPOC community?

Tomesha: Trust. You can’t build trust with a group of people who may not trust the organization. Trust isn’t abstract; it requires work. For example, why would there be trust if there isn’t representation and connection with local groups and organizations? 

Additionally, many organizations forget that employees are really helpful at building trust. For example, if your company has health equity training, it must demonstrate to its employees that health equity is important and not just a ‘fad’. Allowing your employees to communicate upward, make suggestions, and work on implementing their recommendations is one way to build trust within an organization. 

For the customers, I think it is about creating an accountability space, which is different from a ‘safe’ space. Accountability spaces are where discomfort happens, and there is a straightforward way to report it. It is different than complaining about a provider. It looks at the situation and takes steps to prevent this from happening again. 

Q: Feeling seen and heard is essential in healthcare. What are EBWH's suggestions for improving communication during a medical appointment?

Tomesha: Marginalized populations often value support. For many BIPOC communities, their family is their greatest support. Providers also forget to ask, “What would make you comfortable?” It can feel like an invitation to push back from what is expected and have the clients needs and desires the focus. 

I like the suggestion that healthcare providers ask clients, “If you were me, what questions would you ask or want answered?” This provides me with more information, but it slows down the session. It is a great way to create a dialogue between myself and the provider. 

Q. If you had one wish that healthcare and diabetes professionals could know/realize about healthcare for BIPOC women, what would that be?

Tomesha: My biggest wish for healthcare and diabetes professionals who work with BIPOC women is to realize that healthcare is not one-size-fits-all. When providers assume that they ‘know’ it can cause unnecessary harm. For instance, BMI is a commonly used metric in health, even though research has shown that it's not an actual indicator of health. When providers prioritize weight loss for their patients instead of seeing them and their full lives it perpetuates health inequity which causes harm. There is more and more evidence that a Health at Every Size approach which emphasizes engaging in health-promoting habits improves health, and this approach is inclusive. 

Q: Could you share some insights about the inspiration and goals behind your newsletter, Enhance Black Women's Health?

Tomesha: The inspiration behind the Enhance Black Women's Health Community newsletter came from my desire to ensure that healthcare providers were given the tools they needed to ensure they were able to provide equitable and high-quality care to their patients. It came from my experiences in the healthcare industry as a patient with multiple autoimmune diseases. There were times that I felt dismissed and gaslit by members of my healthcare team. As a result, I made it my mission to ensure that other patients didn't have that experience by working with providers to ensure they had the skills to create an environment that genuinely enhanced the health of Black women.