I feel immediate friendship with those that are searching for more peace, equity and justice in our personal and professional lives. 

There are many of us that believe strongly in this important. Expanding my own knowledge of how others promote the manifestation of this valuable agenda inspires me daily and offers me continued hope for this world we inhabit.  This was the genesis of The People’s Pediatrician, a virtual forum intended to create and connect health equity champions.

My name is Amna Khan and I am an outpatient pediatrician at a large, safety net public hospital in the Bay Area, California. I come from a very unique family—my mother is from El Salvador and my father is from Pakistan. My childhood was infused with Muslim and Catholic religious teachings, delicious food and many different, cultural perspectives.  I didn’t appreciate this fully as a child, but as an adult I am very thankful for my family home that was rooted in the premise that humans are much more similar than different, but those differences are what make us beautiful. This foundation has been the guiding light in my life, and the reason why I consider myself not only a scientist, fascinated by how our insides function, but also a true humanist, enchanted by the stories and histories of people I meet every day.

My path into medicine was not a straight arrow, linear one but rather a journey with multiple stops along the way, empowered by deep introspection of how I wanted to spend my life and serve others.

I graduated with a degree in Psychobiology from UC Davis, then worked for several years as a medical assistant in a women’s health clinic that was the sole county wide provider of abortion care. Simultaneously, I volunteered as an on-call doula at the local birthing center, helping mostly unaccompanied women labor and deliver their babies.  I deeply appreciated the opportunity to help women in any reproductive health situation and in this process, deepened my respect of the female body’s strength and resilience.  

After working within healthcare for several years, I gained acceptance to the UCSF post baccalaureate pipeline program, designed to assist underrepresented students gain access to medical school.  I went on to complete medical school at UCSF in 2009, and Pediatrics residency at Stanford, gearing my education toward caring for the underserved.  There was never a day I questioned that I would utilize all the training I had acquired to provide medical care to vulnerable and marginalized patient communities as this was the sole reason I pursued a career in Medicine in the first place.

I have spent the majority of the last 12 years, since completing Pediatrics residency, raising my 3 children with my partner, Antonio and learning the intricacies of serving as the interface between medical care and the community at large.

There have been many days that I wondered if I was strong, resilient and capable enough to juggle the challenges of raising my family and being the type of physician I strove to be.  I also questioned if I would ever get the chance to share my evolving perspective, as a woman of color physician, with a larger audience and diversify the conversation of who practices in this field and for what reasons.  I had resolved to take it on faith that this opportunity would one day present itself when COVID happened.  Our lives all immediately went into survival mode. 

COVID served as a well-positioned vice that pushed to the forefront, in real time, the racial health inequities that we knew existed but had not seen so plainly before.  The summer of 2020 brought a painful racial reckoning for America and it also awakened me to my physician responsibility to dismantle the well laid bricks of systemic racism within healthcare that creates all the illness brought to me in daily clinical encounters.  From this realization, Pedi P.O.W.E.R (Pediatricians Organizing and Working to End Racism) was born, creating our department’s first ever, physician-led, anti-racism working group.  Since then, I have co-led this group with the goal of transforming our minds and medical practice. We must all prioritize thinking of through a health equity lens in order to do our profession justice.

Here I will house my personal writings, thoughtful recommendations on books (for kids and adults), podcasts, and lectures to further educate about health equity and share other items I find meaningful. If any of this sounds intriguing to you, dear reader, please join me by subscribing to the monthly newsletter with the link below. 

I am always interested in meeting new friends, starting important, necessary dialogues and pushing for growth in all areas of my life.  This is our little corner of the internet, where activism meets the field of Medicine and a potential space where we will champion the changes we feel so deeply in our hearts and understand so profoundly in our minds. I really look forward to connecting with you.

 In solidarity,

 Amna