Adriana Smith and the Visual Erasure of Black Bodies in Medicine

In this episode, I discuss the case of Adriana Smith, a Black woman in Georgia who was kept on life support because of the state’s fetal-personhood law, and what her story reveals about medical racism today. I also talk about Dr. Shalon Irving, a CDC epidemiologist who studied Black maternal mortality yet died from preventable complications herself. We explore the historical roots of this crisis—drawing on Medical Apartheid—and how the erasure of Black bodies in medical illustration continues to shape patient care. I share how my own work in inclusive medical illustration aims to support self-advocacy and rebuild trust in a system that…