Dr. Christopher Lathan is focused on removing barriers that prevent some of Boston’s most vulnerable residents from getting the health care they need.
September 20, 2023 WBZ News interviewed Ludmila Svoboda, Oncology nurse and Nurse Director of Dana Farber’s Cancer Care Equity Program and Carol Walker, a mutual patient of Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center and Dana Farber as part of the Changemakers series on Dr. Christopher Lathan. Harvard Street CEO and President Charles Murphy also spoke with WBZ’s Lisa Hughes on the importance of both trust between patients and providers for impactful and positive healthcare and Harvard Street’s partnership with Dana Farber.
BOSTON – Dr. Christopher Lathan is focused on removing barriers that prevent some of Boston’s most vulnerable residents from getting the health care they need. “Working poor folks of all races, but disproportionately Black and Brown communities, have not been able to get the same benefit of the incredible care that we have around us even though they’re right here in the city,” Lathan said.
As an oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (specifically a lung cancer doctor) he wanted to address disparities that he saw firsthand. His father died in his early fifties from congestive heart failure. His mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease in her early sixties. That’s when he says he understood-for the first time-what unequal treatment looked like. He started giving his mother his business card. When she handed the card to emergency room doctors, they treated her differently. She was no longer an older Black woman. She was the mother of a doctor.
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