Trailblazing for Black Women's Reproductive Health with Chiquita Lockley

Addressing Health Disparities Surrounding Infertility in Black Women

About the Panel

This year ElevateMeD is addressing health disparities and tackling the hard issues. On June 18th, ElevateMeD hosted our second film screening and panel discussion featuring the film Eggs Over Easy, directed and produced by this year’s Trailblazer Award Recipient, Chiquita Lockley. The panel featured Ms. Lockley, Ericka Gibson (OB/GYN), a Board Member for the Medical Association of Atlanta, Dr. Kelli Borroughs (OB/GYN) an ElevateMeD Mentor, and Dr. Louisa Appiah (OB/GYN), an ElevateMeD Scholar. The discussion was moderated by ElevateMeD Board Member Dr. Maia McCuiston (Pediatrician).

The discussion shed light on the challenges many Black Women face when trying to start a family. One startling statistic shared by the film and discussed among the panelists was that 80% of Black Women will experience fibroids by the age of 50. Moreover, fibroids, along with PCOS and endometriosis, are primary health conditions that affect a woman's fertility. The film and the discussion are just a start to a much larger conversation.

MODERATOR

Dr. Maia McCuiston, ElevateMeD Board Member & Pediatric physician

PANELISTS

• Chiquita Lockley, ElevateMeD Trailblazer Award Recipient & filmmaker

• Dr. Kelli Burroughs, ElevateMeD Mentor & OB/GYN physician

• Dr. Louisa Appiah, 2020-22 ElevateMeD Scholar & OB/GYN resident physician

• Dr. Ericka Gibson, ElevateMeD Supporter & OB/GYN physician

Chiquita Lockley

Chiquita Lockley is producer and director of the critically acclaimed documentary, Eggs Over Easy: Black Women & Fertility (OWN, Discovery+). She is also the producer of the award-winning documentary Kunta Kinteh Island: Coming Home Without Shackles (PBS) . She holds a BA in English from Spelman College and an MA in Film Studies from Emory University. She specializes in Live Event Production, providing content and creative direction for or that has appeared on: Good Morning America, Amazon Prime, BET, Dove Awards, Stellar Awards, Hank Aaron Chasing The Dream Foundation, The King Center, Human Rights Campaign, Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight, Fox Network, and more.

Chiquita has received numerous awards and recognition for her work in the reproductive health space as a filmmaker, including the Southern Documentary Fund-MacArthur Foundation grant. Resolve: The National Infertility Association, which sponsors National Infertility Awareness Week, honored her with the Hope Award for Advocacy, the highest advocacy award given in the reproductive health space. She also received the Family Building Champion Award from the Cade Foundation. Additionally, she is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., where she received the inaugural National Arts Activist Award to commemorate the 50th year of the Arts & Letters Commission. She has the distinction of Goodwill Ambassador for the State of Georgia, and she continues to give back to her community by mentoring Spelman College students and by serving as the Board Chair for the Black Women Film Network- the oldest organization for the preservation and preparation of films by and about Black women.

Dr. Maia S. McCuiston

Dr. McCuiston was born and raised in Ann Arbor, MI. She received a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Chemistry from Spelman College and her Medical Doctorate from Wayne State University School of Medicine. She completed training in general pediatrics at the University of Michigan and is also an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

Dr. McCuiston is bilingual, speaking both English and Spanish. She has practiced in small and large private practices as well as a large healthcare organization where she held various professional leadership positions, including serving as a physician executive in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, focusing on language services and increasing the pipeline of underrepresented minorities in medicine. In 2017, she made the decision to focus her attention on her clinical work. In October 2021, she opened her own practice, The McCuiston Group, Pediatrics & Lactation, in Washington, DC. Her clinical interests include  lactation support, and holistically supporting health and wellness for children and their families.

Her honors include National Medical Association’s “Top 40 Under 40”, Washington Posts, “Top Doc Rising Star” and Northern Virginia Magazine “Top Doctor” from 2014-2018. In addition, she was a White House Fellows Regional finalist and in 2003 she was featured in the Discovery Channel Series, “First Days”. She enjoys speaking and can be seen on local news outlets discussing everything from back to school and vaccines to coping through COVID.

Dr. Kelli Burroughs

Dr. Burroughs is an award-winning board-certified Obstetrician/Gynecologist and an associate partner with Sweetwater Ob/Gyn. She is originally from Camden, SC. Dr Burroughs proudly attended Spelman College. She graduated from Medical University of South Carolina and the Houston Methodist Ob/Gyn residency program. Dr. Burroughs was elected Chief of Staff at Memorial Hermann Sugar Land and is the first African American physician and second female to serve in the role.

Dr. Burroughs has over 10 years of leadership experience including her appointment as Chair of the Memorial Hermann Perinatal Quality Collaborative. Through the efforts of the PQC, maternal quality and safety initiatives are implemented with the goal of improving maternal outcomes by reducing racial and geographic disparities and reducing complications associated with preeclampsia and maternal hemorrhage.

As health care champion for maternal outcomes, Dr. Burroughs currently serves at the State level addressing maternal morbidity and mortality as a committee member of the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council and the Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies. In addition, Dr Burroughs serves her immediate community as Department Chairman of Ob/Gyn at Memorial Hermann Sugar Land.

As part of her mission to drive conversations about quality health care for all women, Dr. Burroughs serves as a national medical correspondent as seen in Forbes, USA Today, and Fox News.

Dr. Burroughs lives in Sugar Land, TX where she has a thriving private practice providing the full scope of obstetrics and office gynecology. She has been the recipient of multiple awards including Female Physician of the Year and Best in Sugar Land. In her leisure time, Dr. Burroughs enjoys spending time with her husband, Anthony, and their son, Ellison.

Dr. Louisa Appiah

Louisa Appiah obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology with a minor in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She received her Master of Science degree from Hampton University and her Medical Degree from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. She is now a 2nd year OB/GYN resident.

Louisa’s passion for medicine began at a young age and blossomed into a journey to serve the medically underserved and underprivileged. In 2016, she founded and spearheaded the Ghana Heals campaign to meet the needs of the less fortunate in Ghana, West Africa. This campaign sends medical supplies and food item donations to Ghana. The campaign also conducts medical screening for those in various communities plagued with poverty and lack of access to proper healthcare. Out of the need for further reproductive health community service in West Africa, Louisa assisted in the founding of Project Guineya to address maternal and women’s health in Guinea and Ghana. Louisa has been involved in several community service projects in the local communities. She is a Gold Humanism Scholar and previous ElevateMeD scholar. Currently in residency, she actively participates in the DEI committee to change the culture in labor and delivery. Her hope is to make the birthing process a safe and culturally competent place for all patients.

Dr. Ericka Gibson

Ericka C Gibson is a board-certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist with The Southeast Permanente Medical Group in Atlanta, Georgia. A native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, she graduated from Spelman College with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish. She received her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and completed her OBGYN residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She also received a Masters in Public Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a Sommer Scholar with a focus on health policy and reproductive health. She joined The Southeast Permanente Medical Group in 2016. She quickly became engaged in leadership at TSPMG, first as a physician-module lead, then as a hospital-team lead, and also served as the Associate Chief of Women’s Services from 2020-2021. She is currently the Physician Program Director for Perinatal Safety and Quality and helped develop the region’s Cocoon Pregnancy Care model – an integrative, multidisciplinary prenatal care model that centers the patient experience and improves outcomes. There is an urgent need to address the maternal health crisis, particularly in improving outcomes and closing disparity gaps among women of color, and Dr. Gibson believes deeply that it is the responsibility of healthcare systems to meet this need and to ensure that birthing people have access to safe and supported pregnancies, deliveries and postpartum experiences.