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Brown Ambition

Dr. Uché Blackstock on Burnout, Purpose & Walking Away

Brown Ambition

iHeartPodcasts

Education, Self-improvement, Business

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Brown Ambition, Mandi Money sits down with physician, author, entrepreneur, and health equity advocate Dr. Uché Blackstock for a deeply honest conversation about burnout, identity, purpose, and the courage it takes to leave spaces that no longer serve you. Dr. Blackstock opens up about her journey from Harvard Medical School to becoming one of the most trusted public voices on racism in medicine and public health. She shares the pivotal moment she realized that prestige and titles weren’t enough and why leaving a secure academic career during one of the most uncertain times in recent history ultimately changed her life.

 

Together, Mandi and Uché talk about:

  • The emotional cost of staying in environments where you feel unseen
  • Why Black women are often taught to tolerate misalignment for too long
  • Navigating the backlash against DEI work in corporate America and healthcare
  • The pressure of caregiving, entrepreneurship, and “holding it all together”
  • Learning to listen to your body before burnout forces you to stop
  • Motherhood, ambition, grief, and redefining success on your own terms
  • AI in healthcare and what patients should know before their next doctor’s appointment
  • Why joy, rest, creativity, and community are all part of wellness too

 

Dr. Blackstock also reflects on the legacy of her late mother, becoming older than the age her mother was when she passed away, and how that experience reshaped the way she thinks about health, purpose, and living fully.

 

Resources & Links

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Part of why I wrote Legacy was to really talk about all really the wonderful work that my mother and her colleagues were doing in Brooklyn in the 80s and 90s on like a hyper local level, but also to tell the story of why we see these health inequities, right, that are not based in something being biologically wrong with our bodies, but based in the fact that we have a system that is racist, that's classist, that doesn't listen to people when they present for care, right?

0:30.9

And that impacts what happens to us actually on a community level.

0:35.1

Our communities have been so deprived because of redlining and housing

0:38.1

discrimination, that actually impacts our help. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.

0:49.9

Hey, hey, VA fam. Welcome back to the show. I am so excited. You don't really get too many opportunities in life for a do-over, but I desperately wanted a do-over for this interview because of all things. I had the worst technical difficulties when I first tried to have this guest on. She's someone who I have been a huge fan of ever since I read her New York Times best-selling memoir called Legacy. It's Dr. Uche Blackstock.

1:13.8

If you're not familiar with Dr. Uche Blackstock, you're about to. She is an incredibly accomplished

1:17.8

woman. She's also just a down-to-earth working mom. She is someone who is Harvard educated. In fact,

1:24.1

her twin sister and her plus her mom became the first mother-daughter trio to all have graduated from Harvard Medical School.

1:30.8

And today, Dr. Blackstock is a renowned commentator on the link between racism and our medical system that we live in.

1:38.2

But she's also someone who is just super warm and engaging and makes taking care of ourselves something that we can all talk about

1:45.2

and learn more about. And I'm just really happy to have her in the room with me today here on Brown

1:49.8

Ambition. If you haven't picked up her bestselling memoir yet, please go do that now. It's called

1:54.3

Legacy, a Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine. And without further ado, here's my

2:00.1

conversation with the wonderful Dr. Uche Blackstock.

2:04.7

Hey, Uchay, Dr. Uch, what do I call you?

2:08.3

You just call me Uchay. The New York Times bestselling author of Legacy. But thank you. I'll call you Uchay. It's really wonderful to see you again.

2:16.6

I know. And we saw each other

2:17.8

recently at a book event. Well, a few months ago. So I was just so happy to see you again. I feel like that's just those little signals that I'm on the right path, if I'm, if I'm crossing paths with the likes of Uche or our mutual friend Ruchika, who's been on the show. It's lovely to see you.

2:34.7

You're so weird just talking about like both being introverts, but you're extremely or our mutual friend Ruchika. Yes. She's been on the show. It's lovely to see you.

2:34.7

You're so weird just talking about like both being introverts, but you're extremely poised as a speaker. Was that something? Because you transitioned from being obviously a physician. And now you're this, you know, public figure. You're on all these shows and giving interviews all the time. You're giving keynotes. What has been the toughest transition from like, you know, being in a little medical office

2:55.2

with your notes to being on stages and in front of cameras?

2:59.0

Okay, that is such an interesting question. And I think what I would say, like, it's part of my,

...

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