By Andrea Bossi ·Updated February 20, 2026 Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

A group of medical professionals at Johns Hopkins University just made history in Baltimore. 

For the first time ever, the hospital’s trauma and acute care surgery is led by an all-Black team across the five residents and fellows leading it, as ABC News reported. Not only is this history being made at the prestigious hospital, but it’s a beacon to the field at large, where Black surgeons are underrepresented, with only 5.6% of surgeons in training being Black compared to the 13.4% U.S. Black population. 

The headline-making Johns Hopkins Hospital team leading trauma and acute care is comprised of Valentine S. Alia, M.D. (a second-year resident); Ivy Mannoh, M.D. (a third-year resident); Ifeoluwa “Ife” Shoyombo, M.D., M.P.H., M.S. (a third-year resident); Lawrence B. Brown, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H. (a seventh-year resident); and Zachary Obinna Enumah, M.D., Ph.D., M.A. (a ninth-year and critical care fellow). Only one of the five surgeons is a woman. 

“My parents are so proud. I am the first physician in my family,” Dr. Brown told ABC. To him, medicine isn’t just science, but also service. “That’s why it’s important to me. Equity has to remain at the forefront of how we deliver patient care, how we do research, how we scale programs up in our healthcare system.”

Not everyone on the team is the first in their family Hippocratic Oath. For Dr. Enumah, seeing his parents care for their patients directly inspired his own journey through medicine. “Growing up in Columbus, Georgia in the 1990s, I watched my parents — my mom, a family medicine doctor, and my dad, a general surgeon — show up to serve patients everyday,” Dr. Enumah told ABC. 

This history-making team doesn’t just come at a time when Black workers, especially Black women, have been increasingly pushed out of the U.S. workforce. It also comes at a time when systemic disparities persist across racial lines, yet a stronger presence of Black doctors is shown to improve healthcare outcomes for Black patients and communities of color. 

“The best part is that I get to save lives and have an impact every single day,” Dr. Shoyombo said. “To anyone who is [reading this], realize that your dream and capacity can only be limited by you. If you can think it, see it, then you can absolutely reach it.”

The post Meet The First All-Black Trauma Team Making History At Johns Hopkins appeared first on Essence.

Author: Kimberly Wilson

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