Isabel Wilkerson
Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the critically-acclaimed bestsellers The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste
Dr. Uché Blackstock
Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, emergency physician, and New York Times-bestselling author of Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
Speaker Reel: Dr. Uché Blackstock
Photo credit: Diane Zhao
Dr. Uché Blackstock is a physician, author, and changemaker reimagining the future of health. A Harvard-educated emergency physician with over 17 years of frontline experience, she is the Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, a strategic consulting firm that partners with leaders and organizations across the healthcare and public health ecosystem to create systems where everyone can thrive.
Recognized by TIME on its inaugural TIME100 in Health list, Dr. Blackstock is also the New York Times-bestselling author of Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine. As a former MSNBC and NBC News medical contributor, her voice and analysis have shaped national conversations on trust, leadership, and justice in health. A dynamic and passionate speaker, she engages audiences across industries in honest, forward-looking discussions about how we build institutions worthy of the communities they serve and the bold leap of faith it took to found a mission-driven company dedicated to that work.
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About Uché Blackstock
Dr. Uché Blackstock’s story begins in her mother’s Brooklyn clinic, where medicine meant listening deeply, showing up fully, and believing that every patient deserved the highest standard of care. Under the guidance of her mother, Dr. Dale Gloria Blackstock, she came to understand that healing is both a science and a moral practice. Years later, she and her twin sister, Dr. Oni Blackstock, graduated from Harvard Medical School, becoming the first Black mother-daughter legacy graduates in the institution’s history.
A Harvard-educated emergency physician, Dr. Blackstock spent nearly two decades on the front lines of medicine, caring for patients while witnessing firsthand the inequities embedded within the healthcare system. She is now the Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, a strategic advisory firm that works with leaders, organizations, and institutions to reimagine how care is delivered and experienced.
Dr. Blackstock is the New York Times bestselling author of Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine, a deeply personal and incisive memoir that weaves together her family’s story with the broader history of American medicine. Through storytelling, history, and reflection, she invites readers and audiences alike to confront uncomfortable truths while imagining a more just and humane future.
Her work and insights have been featured on MSNBC, NPR, and PBS NewsHour, and in The Washington Post, Scientific American, Essence, and STAT News. She was named to the inaugural TIME100 in Health list and recognized by Fortune as one of “13 Innovators Shaping the Future of Health.”
A compelling and sought-after speaker, Dr. Blackstock brings audiences into conversation with the ideas at the heart of her work: trust, accountability, history, and the human experience of care. Whether speaking on stage or in more intimate settings, she connects story to system, helping audiences reflect, question, and ultimately reimagine what is possible.
Contact us to learn how to bring Dr. Uché Blackstock to your next event.
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Speaking Topics
Unpacking Legacy: Medicine, History, and the Stories We Carry
In this powerful and deeply personal talk, Dr. Uché Blackstock draws from her New York Times bestselling memoir Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine to explore the histories that shape how we experience healthcare today.
Moving between her mother’s life and career, her own journey through medicine, and the broader arc of American healthcare, she reveals how past injustices continue to influence present-day outcomes. With clarity and compassion, Dr. Blackstock invites audiences to consider how storytelling can illuminate truth, deepen understanding, and open the door to meaningful change.
The Leap: Listening to the Voice That Changes Everything
What does it mean to walk away from a life that looks successful on the outside, but no longer feels aligned on the inside?
In this intimate and reflective talk, Dr. Blackstock shares the story of leaving academic medicine to build a new path rooted in purpose. She explores the quiet, often uncomfortable inner voice that calls us toward change, and what it takes to listen, trust, and act.
Blending personal narrative with broader insight, this talk resonates with anyone navigating transition, reinvention, or the search for deeper meaning in their work and life.
Trust and Accountability: Rethinking the Healthcare Experience
At a time when trust in institutions is deeply strained, Dr. Blackstock invites audiences to reconsider how trust is built, experienced, and, too often, broken within healthcare.
Drawing on her years as an emergency physician, she shares stories from the front lines alongside a broader examination of the systems that shape patient care. This talk explores the gap between intention and experience, and challenges audiences to think differently about what it means to truly see, hear, and care for another person.
The Future of Care: Innovation, Humanity, and What Comes Next
As innovation accelerates, healthcare stands at a crossroads. New technologies, including artificial intelligence, hold enormous promise, but also raise urgent questions about bias, equity, and trust.
In this forward-looking talk, Dr. Blackstock examines how we can ensure that the future of healthcare remains grounded in humanity. Through storytelling and insight, she explores what it will take to build systems that are not only more advanced, but also more just, more transparent, and more responsive to the people they serve.
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Video
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Praise for Uché Blackstock
We had an absolutely wonderful time with Dr. Blackstock!! We only wish we could have had her for longer! She is such a beacon of light, and joy, and kindness. Our students (and everyone in the audience) were absolutely delighted to have her visit and to ask her all their questions, and get advice during smaller meetings with her. There was so much positive energy in the room, it was buzzing. We could have gone on all evening!
— Duke University, Sanford School of Public PolicyDr. Uché Blackstock’s fireside chat at Geisel’s 2026 MLK Service Awards was one of those rare moments that felt both deeply personal and powerfully practical. In conversation with Dr. Lisa McBride, she moved beyond a traditional keynote, inviting us into the story behind her work, including reflections from her NYT bestselling book LEGACY: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine, and the influence of her physician-mother’s unwavering commitment to community.
What stayed with me most was her warmth and clarity. She spoke that health inequities are systemic, trust is fragile and must be built and rebuilt, and that “healing” requires both rigorous science and deliberate humanity. She underscored that understanding patients’ communities isn’t optional, but it’s essential to delivering the culturally compassionate care people deserve.
The conversation also challenged us to act: to pursue intentional, integrated power-sharing in healthcare, strengthen cross-racial mentorship across the training pipeline, and confront hard truths about who is, and who isn’t being supported into medicine. She also challenged institutions to have courage to address health inequities and also invest in communities.
Dr. Blackstock’s message was a compelling call to build the “beloved community” through real accountability, not symbolism.
It was a standout session, grounded in community, truth-telling, and a clear call to dismantle systemic barriers in medicine.
— Irene Dankwa-Mullan MD MPH, Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, Board of AdvisorsDr. Blackstock’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. keynote was “eye-opening,” with a profound focus on using one’s life to serve others and fight for health equity and racial justice in medicine. The raw emotion of her reading passages from her book Legacy caused the audience to be completely still yet intensely emotional. Dr. Blackstock viewed mentorship as a concrete way to carry out MLK’s legacy of service. She shared that her mother Dr. Dale Blackstock was her first mentor. As the moderator, it was clear to me that her mother’s legacy and experiences provided a unique and strong foundation of resilience, compassion, and unconditional love—which helped shape her voice today as a premier health equity advocate and bestselling author. She’s a true leader, and her humility is a quality that sets her apart.
— Lisa McBride, Ph.D., Associate Dean and Professor of Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth CollegeDr. Blackstock’s keynote speech was the highlight of our annual meeting. In a generationally diverse audience, Dr. Blackstock inspired medical students and retired physicians alike. Throughout her talk, Dr. Blackstock engaged the audience, challenging us to think beyond the data to see the true human toll of racism in the U.S. healthcare system. She elegantly framed these devastating impacts in terms of loss, not only of lives, but of the vital moments and connections that enrich and sustain families and communities. Dr. Blackstock’s extraordinary perspective is essential in these times.
— Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)Dr. Blackstock’s visit was amazing! Our students LOVED her – so many students said that Legacy made them feel seen, and that it meant a lot to hear her speak and get to have conversations with her. They were really excited to get their books signed, too!
I really think her visit had a huge impact on our students and faculty as well. It brought the community together and sparked some great discussions on campus and in the classroom. She is always welcome back at Simmons!
— Simmons UniversityOur entire staff and the attendees were absolutely thrilled to meet and speak with Dr. Blackstock. She graciously decided to sign books during the reception, which was such a thoughtful touch and something everyone truly enjoyed. Many of our staff were a little starstruck, and it meant so much to them to have that personal connection. The fireside chat itself was outstanding; it flowed beautifully and was the highlight of the evening. The authenticity, insight, and warmth Dr. Blackstock brought to the conversation left a lasting impression on everyone in the room.
— Lindsay Seekford, Healthy Start, Inc.Dr. Blackstock was excellent. Her fireside chat was inspiring. Having her speak let the public know how serious we are about making changes in our organization. Many people were impressed that our organization is working on these issues.
— Valley Health SystemPraise for Legacy
Uché Blackstock has made something abundantly clear: If you want to understand a society, look at its hospitals. Dr. Blackstock, one of the most insightful and impactful public voices in medicine, shares her remarkable personal story and her profound insight regarding race, gender, and health inequality. We meet a person who is vulnerable, human, and brilliant. However, this book is so much more than a compelling memoir. These are marching orders. Armed with concrete steps for addressing inequality, readers will be inspired to become better stewards of our communities and society. Simply put, Legacy makes room for us to freedom dream anew.
— Imani Perry, National Book Award-winning author of South to AmericaLegacy is both a compelling memoir and an edifying analysis of the inequities in the way we deliver healthcare in America. Uché Blackstock is a force of nature.
— Abraham Verghese, MD, author of The Covenant of Water and Cutting for Stone -
Books by Uché Blackstock
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Featured Title
Legacy
“Legacy is an illuminating and stirring journey of a book. The illuminating: the devastating cycle of racism in our healthcare system. The stirring: the inimitable family and career of Dr. Uché Blackstock and her quest to dismantle medical racism.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist
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