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Nashville obstetrician promotes equity and maternity health





GravesCourtesy / Ascension Saint Thomas

GravesCourtesy / Ascension Saint Thomas

Dr. Cornelia Graves is working to make sure all women get the care they need, regardless of socioeconomic status or race.

Graves has been the director of perinatal services for Ascension Saint Thomas since 2006, and she is a maternal fetal medicine specialist.

“My passion for equity work has come from the fact that I’ve always been passionate about maternal morbidity and mortality,” Graves said. “My training is not just in obstetrics, but I also have training in critical care. In order for us to reduce morbidity and mortality, we have to look at all of the factors that come along with that, and part of that is looking at equity as well.”

Black and Indigenous women are three to five times more likely to die in pregnancy, according to Graves. Black women in New York City are 12 times more likely to die. Risk factors include limited access to care, socioeconomic status, the social determinants of health — what type of food is available, transportation to care, ability to take time off — and other effects caused by racial discrimination, according to Graves.

Graves is working with Ascension to address these issues with programs such as doula services, additional support for women, education for pregnant women and training for medical staff.

She works to make sure providers understand the unique problems and physiology of pregnant women and recommends training the next generation of students to be able to take care of an increasingly complex pregnant population.

“I think in particular Black women are very well aware and sometimes they’ll actually address it with you and tell you they don’t want to be another statistic. The first thing I address is to have people listen to the patient. When the patient says ‘I can’t do something,’ we automatically think that means the patient is being obstinate.”

Graves suggests that providers ask open-ended questions, empower patients and educate them about risk factors and leading causes of death.

Graves was the first Black female resident and first Black woman promoted to senior academic status at Vanderbilt University. While there, she helped recruit more Black students to the School of Medicine.

“Before I came to Ascension Saint Thomas, I was the assistant dean for the University of Vanderbilt in addition to being a maternal care medicine specialist and the division director there,” she said. “We began to recruit students for Vanderbilt for the medical student class. We traveled to historically Black colleges such as Xavier University and other places. We not only recruited them, but we got them admitted to the School of Medicine. … When I first got to Vanderbilt there were two students of color per year, and when I left, they were 10% of the class.”

Graves is passionate about equity and believes that achieving it will improve the quality of health care for all women. Her father was a minister, and she says her passion comes from her father’s drive to respect all humanity.

“I really think that we have to know our history. There’s a saying that people who don’t know our history are bound to repeat it, and medicine reflects the history of the United States. Many of the things in medicine that have been institutionalized are related to our thoughts from a previous time. If we want to make changes, we need to embrace that history, understand it and move forward to make those changes and improve care for all of us. If you improve care for women with disparities, you improve care for every woman in this country.”

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