Black History Month is about remembering and honoring the past, but it is also about inspiring and challenging ourselves to build a better future.
For me, as an African-American woman and physician, there would be no future at all without the gift of organ donation. I received a life-saving liver transplant last October, and I thank God for it.
National statistics tell us that African-Americans are 13 percent of the population and that we represent 29 percent of those waiting for an organ transplant. But in 2015, only 16 percent of donors were African-Americans. We need to work together to increase these numbers on the state donor registry.
This is especially urgent because transplant success rates increase when organs are matched between members of the same ethnic background.
I am an active volunteer in the Chattanooga office of Donate Life TN. The more I learn about organ and tissue donation, the more I know how blessed I am to have received a transplant. The need for organs and tissue is far greater than the supply.