Inspirational Black Men and Women in Medicine: Dr Charlotte Owens of Takeda On 5 Things You Need To Create A Successful Career In Medicine

In the United States today, black doctors are vastly underrepresented. Only 5% of physicians nationwide are black. Why is it so important to have better representation? What steps can be taken to fix this discrepancy? In this interview series, we are talking to successful black men and women in medicine about their career, their accomplishments, and how others may follow their path. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dr. Charlotte Owens.

Charlotte Owens, M.D., F.A.C.O.G, is currently the Vice President and Head of the Center for Health Equity and Patient Affairs at Takeda. A true advocate for sustainable change, Dr. Owens has worked in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries in clinical development and medical affairs roles for more than 12 years. She has also practiced Obstetrics and Gynecology for more than 20 years and still sees patients today.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

My own life experiences have influenced and led me to everything I do today. That’s why addressing health inequities is both personal and professional for me. I was born and raised in Oakland, California. As a young child, I witnessed and experienced health inequities and disparities, even before I knew what to call them and certainly before these were widely known and talked about terms.

I knew I wanted to do my part to come up with solutions to some of the biggest medical and non-medical health challenges so that fewer children and their families need to decide between one essential item or another in order to be healthy in their environments, such as buying medicine vs. paying for dinner.

Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

It’s been a journey of personal and professional experiences and the belief that I can do my part to make a difference. What initially drew me to health care was the opportunity to care for and educate people, so that they could live without illness. I was fortunate enough to have had several key moments throughout my life that inspired me to pursue a career in health care.

As an undergraduate at UC Davis, I volunteered at a student run clinic called Clinical Tepati where I learned how access to health care escaped people, in more ways than I could imagine.

As a medical student at the University of Michigan and a member of the Student National Medical Association, I discovered how educational opportunities evaded many individuals and we created a program to address that.

As a resident, I learned how most of what makes us healthy, or not, resides outside of the health care system and, that as a physician, my job was not just to diagnosis and treat patients, but to help connect them to the resources they need every day. I also learned that we must take the time to really see, hear and acknowledge that people matter. We must remember that we have more in common with each other than differences.

During my residency, as there had been during college, there was a research requirement and after graduation, I began to work within the pharmaceutical industry.

My role at Takeda and in pharma is really an upstream opportunity from my personal and professional experiences with care delivery. When you are in pharma, you can treat 100K+ patients a day — not directly with your own hands — but by delivering life changing treatments that meet the needs of patients because you incorporated the patient’s and community’s needs into your work and are able to arm physicians and providers with the tools and resources, they need to provide equitable care.

The duality of being a physician scientist allows me to do sustainable and impactful work that makes a difference in people’s lives based on what they want and need. The influence that pharma has is worldwide and being able to have a seat at the table, and to ensure diverse perspectives and thoughts are considered from discovery through delivery, directly impacts lives.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

From an early age, my parents taught me to never take no for an answer and to not let challenges or struggles defeat me. My father used to always say, ‘I hear what you do’ and I still carry this mindset with me today. He meant, talk is cheap and that if we truly want to drive impact and change, we need to focus on action. It influences the way I approach problem-solving and decision-making, which is so important as not just a business leader or a physician, but a human. The way we grow up leaves an impression on us for life. But despite the injustices, inequities, and disparities I saw growing up, and unfortunately still see today, I believe the world can be better.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I’ve been fortunate to experience many moments in my life that have shaped me and my career. If I had to choose one moment, it would be witnessing how you can have multigenerational impact when you invest in people and give them the resources they need for life.

As an obstetrics or obstetrician (OBGYN), I had a patient who became ill and went into preterm labor, delivered, and was subsequently admitted to the intensive care unit. While assessing her during her stay, we started talking about her life. Because I was a physician, she thought I had grown up affluent. I explained to her I hadn’t and told her that whatever I had accomplished, she could do that and more. For the next several years, my office and I supported her in a variety of ways. We watched her become a health care professional and buy a home. I still remember her and smile because it reaffirms that each of us matter and sharing kind words or lending a hand can go a long way in someone’s life.

You are a successful leader. Which three-character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

As a leader, I strive to be a good listener, collaborator and convener. All three of these traits directly influence the way I approach and conduct my work. Now more than ever, it’s critical to use these three traits to address health inequities:

• Health equity — when everyone can attain their full potential for health and well-being — is such a big goal that no one entity can achieve it alone. If we really want to be change agents and create a better world, it’s important that we listen and learn from the patients and communities themselves. Once we hear and understand, we need to create solutions with the community. That’s the only way to ensure the programs, resources, medicines and therapies we co-create are culturally relevant, sustainable and truly reflective of people’s diverse needs.
• Leading Takeda’s Center for Health Equity and Patient Affairs is a true opportunity to build on the company’s corporate philosophy which puts patients first followed by building trust within society. As a center of excellence, the Center for Health Equity and Patient Affairs is charged with gathering diverse perspectives from people around the world and developing a broad eco-system of partners to ensure that these voices are heard and that equity considerations are embedded into not only our R&D and patient access activities, but our entire global business. Convening these different perspectives — both internally and externally — helps Takeda to think bigger and bolder and provide equitable access to care so that patients and communities can live healthier lives.
• In my role, I’m able to collaborate with all different people, from all different countries, who speak all different languages on one singular goal — to bring about better health patients and communities around the world. Our ability to bring our different backgrounds and diverse expectations to problem solve together is rewarding. We’re able see tangible changes in the lives of people we impact through our work that’s sustainable — for various ecosystems and for generations to come.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. This might seem intuitive to you, but it would be helpful to articulate this expressly. Can you share three reasons with our readers why it’s really important for there to be more diversity in medicine?

Diverse representation in medicine, clinical care and health care overall creates better knowledge, improved health outcomes, builds community trust, and allows others to see someone like themselves succeeding in a field they may otherwise not have insight into.

When it comes to health equity, we know inequities are vast and complex so no one person can address or solve for them on their own. It will take diverse perspectives, collaboration, and big thinking to make this world healthier.

Including more diverse people in these important conversations can enable us to address health equity in more strategic, holistic, culturally competent, and sustainable ways. For the following reasons it is critical to have diversity and representation in medicine:

• Diversity in medicine will enable better trust between communities and patients. That trust can bring better understanding, improved care, and enables biopharmaceutical and device companies to better partner with those in health care so we connect with and serve the total, complete person, not just their medical needs. If we don’t have trust, we can’t work together. And if we can’t work together, we can’t make the world better.
• With more diversity in medicine, we’ll be better equipped to include the right (and different) voices in conversations with patients and communities so that we are providing treatments and support that are truly reflective of people’s needs.
• If we’re able to include more diverse perspectives into the medical field, we’ll be better serving patients and communities in a culturally competent manner. It means we are “meeting people where they are” and improving outcomes. We can’t assume we know everything about people and what they need more than they do. More diverse voices in the discussion mean more opportunities to listen and learn.

As things stand today, what are the main barriers for Black men and women to enter the medical field?

Would you be encouraged to go into a field where you don’t see anyone who looks like you? We tend to choose and be encouraged to choose career paths based on where we can either see ourselves and people like us or receive encouragement to pursue.

This concept is not unique to health care. It applies to academia too. With only 10% of STEM faculty being represented by minorities, there are fewer opportunities for Black students to see themselves as successful in the field or to be taught by professors who understand their personal struggles.

Also, when it comes to representation in the medical field, research shows that when people are cared for by those who are like them, outcomes are better. This is because these physicians can really understand what it means for that person to be healthy, beyond the treatment. They may think about things that others don’t, like transportation, childcare, or access to pharmacies, that impact a person’s ability to be healthy. These non-medical factors are commonly called social determinants of health.

From your perspective, can you share a few things that can be done by the community, society, or the government, to help remove those barriers?

To truly increase representation among Black people in the medical field we need to start at the root of the problem and come together to address the underlying causes that create barriers impacting our communities — like economic instability, limited access to quality education, unhealthy social, living, and working conditions, and more.

A way to improve these outcomes is what Takeda’s Center for Health Equity and Patient Affairs calls health equity capacity building.

• Through knowledge sharing and technical and scientific capacity-building collaborations with communities worldwide, the Center of Health Equity and Patient Affairs team is helping Takeda take an innovative, industry-leading approach to addressing health inequities by strengthening health research and care delivery systems. Our ultimate goal is to improve care at every stage of the patient health journey.
• To date, our health equity capacity building projects have trained 26,000 undergraduate students in STEM, assisted 1,800 graduate students in completing their PhDs, and provided 3.4M in newly awarded research grants to local scientist/institutions so that they can serve as technical experts to train others in their community.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started my career in medicine,” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. I would advise those who are aspiring to be in medicine to remember most of what makes us healthy is outside of the health care system. We can’t forget to treat the whole patient. That requires listening, learning and co-creating a health plan they can understand, accept and adhere to. This will also require us to better understand the patient’s ecosystem and “meet them” where they are because when we look inward, we’ll see that the solution probably lies there, too.
2. I would also challenge them to think about which of the social determinants of health they can help improve in a patient’s life, before, during and after treatment, so they can deliver the right care, at the right time, so they can live better and healthier lives in a sustainable way.
3. We’re presented with chances to learn something new every day. Whether it’s in medicine or not, learning something new every day can better equip us to face new challenges and share our knowledge with others across our network.
4. When I reflect upon my early career, I often think about how important it was for me to dream big. When you dare to dream big, you’re putting yourself in a position to learn and experience new things that could be outside your comfort zone. By daring to dream big, you could help inspire others or even the next generation to act. Remember, starting your career is only one small chapter of your story, so it’s important to think about how you’d like your book to end.
5. I would advise those starting their careers to build a community of likeminded people from all sectors who are willing to take (and work during) the ride along with you. People are connecting and interacting in ways never seen before. As a result, people across different backgrounds, cultures, and industries are collaborating to solve some of the world’s biggest health care challenges. Fostering a sense of community in both your personal and professional life is more important than ever before. There are resources available now that are literally at our fingertips. I strongly encourage those starting their careers to leverage them to find commonalities and connections with people who are driven by the same goals and want to take action.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :)

Find intentional ways to do one small acts of kindness — everyday. They can be altruistic or strategic. If we all take a small portion of our day to put a smile on someone’s face or do a kind gesture, we can help spark connection and help make the world better.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

There are several people I’d love to dine with, but one that stands out among the crowd is Mellody Hobson. Her perspective on mentoring and corporate responsibility to address societal concerns is impactful. I find myself frequently studying her interviews, what she writes and reflecting on how I can incorporate her insights into my life.

How can our readers best continue to follow your work online?

They can follow me along my journey by visiting my LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotteowens1/

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.