New Tool Helps Bridge Gap in Health Care Inequality
DENVER (CBS4) – From a young age, Dr. Jennifer Taylor-Cousar knew her calling.
"I was born here in Colorado, and I decided I was going to be a doctor when I was about nine," she told CBS4's Mekialaya White. "I remember following my mom's friend around who was an ICU nurse at St Joe's."
Now, as a pulmonary specialist at National Jewish Health, she cares for cystic fibrosis patients daily like the Wright family. They met serendipitously in the fall of 2020, following a virtual CF conference.
"I was seeing many different doctors... 54 years of suffering, going through chronic pain in my stomach, living pain every day. It was wreaking havoc on my life," said Terry Wright.
Terry's symptoms had been misdiagnosed as asthma.
His wife, Michele, was by his side during the rollercoaster of a journey, "It was approaching a grave situation. I said, 'If we don't do something he's not going to make it.'"
The pair finally got answers. Once diagnosed, the couple set on a mission to educate other Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities on the risks of misdiagnosis. Taylor-Cousar shared the same passion.
"It's been couched as a disease that only occurs in white people; therefore, many people of color have been misdiagnosed or late-diagnosed."
The pair, along with Taylor-Cousar, developed the Wright Cystic Fibrosis Screening Tool ©. It is now approved by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, being shared with care teams and the general public on social media. Once the screening is completed and the symptoms are consistent with CF, people can take the information to a doctor, who can refer them to get a sweat test to confirm.
The Wrights say they're grateful their years of pain weren't in vain. "We want to make sure that this doesn't happen to anyone else and they can self-identify. This is taking our story, our journey, and turning it into something better for the benefit of others," Michele said.
"As a woman of color, making these changes and having a seat at the table to do it is amazing," said Taylor-Cousar. "Primary care docs need to know about this, physician assistants need to know about this, and people in the community need to know – so they can get diagnosed because there are medicines out there that are really life-changing and we want people to access those medicines. This is imperative that people know, as you've seen with the pandemic there are stark health inequities in the U.S. and we really need to do whatever it takes to repair that problem."