Dr. Ebere Azumah MD, ACC, FACOG, MPH

Ebere Azumah, MD, ACC, FACOG, MPH is the Founder & CEO of Azumah Solutions LLC, a Consulting and Professional Coaching Firm. She is a DONA trained Doula and a Board – Certified Obstetrician and Gynecologist.

Dr. Azumah is a graduate of Wayne State School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan and completed her Obstetrics and Gynecology residency training from Long Island Jewish Hospital in New York City, New York. She completed her Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in Health Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts where she focused on Negotiation and Healthcare Leadership.

She has a passion for bridging gaps between organizations through negotiation. Her desire is for Obstetricians and Doulas to work collaboratively to provide a patient-centered labor experience for pregnant women.

Dr. Azumah’s other passions include business development and providing quality healthcare to vulnerable communities in the United States, Haiti, and Africa. She Co-Founded Blacks and Allies for Global Health Equity, a platform for intrinsically motivated individuals in the diaspora to engage in global health equity dialogues and to provide medical mission trips to Low income countries.

Session

Can we get along with Obstetricians?

The rising rate in maternal mortality, especially in black mothers in the United States calls for us the medical community to try something different. We are a part of the high-income countries and should have similar or even better maternal mortality rates as other countries within our cohort.

Unfortunately, that is not the case! A solution to this problem is for us to continue to advocate for a more patient – centered obstetrical model. This model should include collaboration between Doulas and Obstetricians. Obstetricians are trained to save the mother and child, and they have been programmed to think and act that way possibly even in low risk pregnancies. However, we know not all pregnancies end with a complication; many pregnancies do well. As Doulas, can we help limit interventions without inciting an unintended conflict? This session will provide Doulas with some tools on how to collaborate with Obstetricians and to advocate for pregnant woman using negotiation skills. As medicine shifts to value-based care, there is room for Doulas to step in and become an important advocate for the laboring woman. It is time that we the medical community try something different in other to decrease the raising maternal mortality.