CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Dr. Charlotte Akor is a pediatric ophthalmologist. She trained 14 years including four years in medical school, followed by a year in research and ocular pathology, then residency before striking out on her own. If it involves your eyes, especially for children, she's the specialist other doctors in town refer you to.
"One thing that is special about pediatric ophthalmologists is that even though a person is non-verbal, we're able to determine 'Do they need glasses?' 'What's the strength of glasses they need," Akor said.
She is one of only two fellowship trained pediatric ophthalmologists south of San Antonio.
State Physician Workforce data shows only 6.3% of doctors in Texas are black.
Furthermore, statistics show black women only make up 2.8% of doctors in the medical field in all of the US.
"I think we're around," Akor said. "I think one of the things that's challenging about a place where that it is not in a big city right? It's that there is not a lot of African American doctors."
When Dr. Akor moved to town a couple of years ago, she ended up buying Clear Vision Pediatric where she came across some unexpected push back at first.
"It helped having patients already here, but you talk about being African American and sometimes not getting the same level of respect as my predecessor," she said.
Dr. Akor said representation matters.
Her focus, though, outside of work is on her two young kids.
"My children are still feeling me out," Akor said. "I'm trying to be an inspiration to them. My son last night said, 'Mom, why do you want to be a doctor?' I said, 'We'll I enjoy helping people. You get to eat because of it!'"
Despite being an expert in her field and holding privileges at three Coastal Bend hospitals, Dr. Akor said she relies on others to have a successful business and does not plan to go anywhere soon.
"So we're learning, right? Whatever business we have we treat people the way we want to be treated," she said.
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