Guyanese Oneeka Williams’ journey to becoming the first Black woman to train in Urologic Surgery at the Lahey Clinic, in Burlington, Massachusetts, in the United States was filled with twists and turns that she now uses as an inspiration for others, especially the young, as in her own words she is on a mission to “reshape how we think” as she “swings for the fences” and encourages others to do the same.
A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr Williams now holds the titles of award winning author, surgeon, teacher and positivity catalyst.
Her substantive positions are Urologic Surgeon at the Emerson Hospital and Assistant Clinical Professor of Urology at Tufts Medical School.
She left Guyana when she was around 11 years old, after completing first form at St Roses as her father, well-known journalist Hubert Williams, had gained employment as an editor with the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) in Barbados. He had been employed at the Guyana Graphic and his daughter feels the attacks he endured under the then Forbes Burnham regime were part of the reason he relocated his family to Barbados. At that time, she recalled, her father had a radio programme titled ‘Analysis’ where he voiced his concerns about what was happening politically in the country.
While her love for writing was triggered by her father, her love for the sciences came from her mother, Eugenie Williams, who was a science teacher. Dr Williams also now teaches as part of her daily routine is supervising medical students, residents, fellows, physician assistants and nurse practitioners who are learning on the job.
“My mom has been a very powerful influence on my interest in science. She was a science teacher at St Stanislaus and always had an ongoing stream of students coming through for lessons… And we spent a lot of time with her in the lab at St Stanislaus just kind of sitting while she taught the students… So I have always had a very strong connection to the sciences…,” she told Stabroek Weekend via a virtual interview.
She said her mother had wanted to become a doctor but was unable to because of her circumstances, so instead she did her first degree in science and then attended the teachers’ training college where her passion for teaching bloomed. Sixty years later she is still committed to educating young minds.
First hurdle
In Barbados, Williams attended an all-girls school where she crossed her first hurdle to becoming a medical doctor as it was where she had an aha moment and knew that was the profession she wanted to pursue. In second form, a student had an accident with her earring which resulted in a lot of bleeding and while her colleagues panicked, Williams recalled, she was calm in assisting the child.
“I think it was in that moment I realised, wow, I actually really want to do this for the rest of my life. I really care about taking care of people, it was just something in that manual disentangling the earring…comforting her, helping to clean up some of the blood. That for me was just a light-bulb moment that this feels good…,” she said of that incident.
Not long after she discovered that she had to do physics as one of the prerequisites, but it was not available at her school, only at the all-boys’ schools. After a figurative fight, she later became the first girl allowed to attend the all-boys school and it was there her real journey to becoming a medical doctor began. Transferring to a school of only boys was in itself, she said, a pivotal moment. She recognised the importance of speaking up if you have a need or see something that is not right and having people who advocate for you.
She received tremendous support at the school. So much so that looking back she believes the support was instrumental in her becoming who she is today.
Williams left Barbados after A-levels for the US where she did her under-graduate degree in biophysics at Hopkins’ University and then went to Harvard Medical School.
“It was not as easy as it sounds, coming up from the Caribbean as a foreign student, navigating through for the first time and being exposed to this sort of racial tension, even though I know in Guyana there is… a sort of tension, coming to a place where because of the colour of your skin the expectation was that you were less than, [and] you could not perform at a level that was consistent with excellent…” she said of the initial phase of her journey in the US.
Being treated in a way that devalued and diminished who she was, was a new experience for the young Williams and she had to learn how to navigate this and maintain who she was in the process. Even when she was applying to do her specialisation in urology, Dr Williams recalled a urologist in the process of interviewing her who enquired, ‘why would you want to be a urologist? You are way too pretty to be a surgeon. Why don’t you think about dermatology?
Looking back, she is still shocked at the comment but at that moment it only fortified her decision to ensure that she followed her dream of becoming a urologist.
A urologist is a specially trained physician who provides care for the organs and issues of the urinary tract in women, men and children, all of whom can have different urological issues.
“It was just part of the sexist and the misogynistic type of ingrained mentalities and philosophies of male surgeons that this should be a male field. It has been male dominated for a long time and they believe that women have a place and their place is not in surgery,” she shared.
First Black woman
After being successful in her quest to train to become an urologist, Dr Williams became the first Black woman resident at the Lahey Clinic and she likened that experience to the one she had when she became the first girl to attend the all-boys’ school in her teenage years. Recognising that this was something new, as they had never had a woman of colour as a resident, the Lahey Clinic was very invested in her being the best she could be.
“When you train at a place where people believe in you, and they believe you are a star and there is nothing you cannot do, it totally influences the way you approach your life, approach your training and it really helps to instill a kind of confidence because you have those affirmations to tell you and remind you that you really have everything that you need,” she said.
Williams said the minute she started medical school she knew she wanted to become a surgeon but urologic surgery was not something she thought of, even though she knew she did not want to be a surgeon who operated and then the patient was discharged. She loved the patient-doctor relationship and she wanted to be a surgeon where she would have continued follow-up with patients. During her rotation of shadowing surgeons she was there during consultation with a patient who had urologic surgery and it just spoke to her.
She hopes that her journey has helped to crack open the door for other women to make theirs a little easier, just as becoming the first girl at an all-boys’ school made it easier for girls after her.
Williams believes it is important for young black girls and women to see themselves represented in fields where they are not traditionally found, “where images don’t show people like us that say it is possible”.
It was for that specific reason that she started the Dr Dee Dee Dynamo Super Surgeon on the go book series. The main character is a “powerful black girl superhero or super surgeon” who has powers of positivity and electromagnetic energy so that she can go anywhere in the universe as a surgeon, scientist, as someone who is a leader and solves problems.
“It was important for me to have girls, especially black girls, see themselves as powerful and begin to have these images as part of their normal upbringing, and when they open their eyes and read books that they see themselves as positive and powerful,” she shared.
She recalled when she began to look for books for her son, there were not a lot that had positive characters of colour. She pointed out that often when looking for pictures of scientists and astronauts they are “old white men with grey hair with spectacles.
“So a lot of my work is in recognizing the significance of what I have been able to achieve through the support of God’s help, through the support of so many others but in making a channel and a path easier in highlighting what is possible, in making this not the exception but the norm…”
She pointed out that there is still so much needed to increase the representation in the STEM field, and certainly in medicine and as a result, as she does her work, it is with the understanding that by being visible she is creating ways to bring people into that world, not just girls but boys as well. She wants boys to understand that women and men are on equal footing when it comes to what they are capable of and what they contribute and children need to be exposed to powerful women and women of colour at a young age.
She pointed out that many qualified black women still walk into rooms feeling like they don’t belong; they still have limiting beliefs and self-doubt which play into their mental and physical health.
“My mission is that I continue this work, the bridge between the kids and the adults, the adults also doing the work in their own lives to develop these positive perspectives of themselves and how they are able,” she added.
While her love for writing was on account of her dad being a journalist, she has always seen herself as a big story teller.
“It helps kids to connect with the problems that we face in the world. It helps them to understand the science of it because it is brought into this kind of everyday experience… and it helps them to connect to all of the other subliminal messages, leadership, worth, family values and caring for each other and believing that there are no limits, those positive messages…,” she said of her series which has 11 books.
Dr Williams has also just published an adult book titled Not Today, Negativity!: 5 Habits of Positivity to Cope, Hope and Be Well in Tough Times which speaks to approaching one’s problems in a positive manner in order to learn, to elevate above one’s circumstances and become empowered to act.
She is working on a teenage workbook, a children’s colouring book, and an adult workbook which would create a training/workshop curriculum that allows it to be used in any environment.
Dr Williams now works at the Emerson Hospital where she is helping to build its urology department. She is a busy woman but is convinced that when one is passionate about something, believes strongly that is what one has been called to do and it is a divine assignment where one is driven to use all one’s gifts and talents then it is worth it.
She is also mindful about creating space for self-care having learnt the importance of practicing this over the years and has communicated this in her most recent book.
“One of the things that is really important to me as I tell my story and as I do this work is really the modelling around that life is a roller coaster, it has its ups and downs and how do we learn despite our circumstances to extract those things from our stories that bring us joy, empower us and help us to rise above circumstances. So even though the life that I have led has been challenging there are so many high points of just joy and just fulfillment,” Dr Williams said.
She hopes that her work would extend into Guyana and the Caribbean and she has plans to start a podcast where people can interact with her.
The urologist has been married for 30 years and has a 15-year-old son. She also has four brothers, one of whom is her twin, who are into engineering, financial services, filmmaking and journalism.
