Jordan Dudley

Third-year medical student, T.H. Chan School of Medicine

By Colleen Locke

Jordan Dudley and fellow third-year medical student Kassandra Jean-Marie created Advocacy Allies in their first year of medical school. Dudley and Jean-Marie accompanied patients of color to medical appointments, helped them keep track of their medications and made sure they felt heard by their medical providers. Dudley met some of the patient participants when she and her fellow med student Anna Nesgos volunteered with Mentors for Young Mothers. Advocacy Allies held its first seminar this spring, connecting medical students with community resources so that they can be advocates while also being medical care providers for Black or Indigenous people of color.

“When people think of medical advocacy, they often think of policymaking and campaigning for things, and it doesn't have to be that,” Dudley said. “It's a little bit more approachable to think of yourself as an advocate if you’re working one-on-one with the patient. You can ask yourself, ‘What does that person need and how can I help them achieve it?’”

Dudley, who has a bachelor’s degree in cell and molecular biology, worked as a medical assistant and scribe at South County Dermatology in Narragansett, Rhode Island, where she advocated for patients during calls to insurance companies and by tracking down product samples. These experiences have sparked her desire to continue to be an advocate as a physician.

“I’m 25 and I’ve never had a Black doctor,” Dudley said. “And as a Black woman, I would like to be that for somebody one day, especially with the state of maternal mortality for Black women in the United States. It’s three times that of white women and all the research shows that you do better when your doctor looks like you and can relate to you. So I’m hoping that just by me existing in the space, I can help reduce that disparity for people.”