Nationwide — India Marshall, a 29-year old African American woman from North Carolina who recently underwent skull surgery, is thankful to her surgeon, Dr. Jewel Greywoode, who is also Black, not only for successfully performing the operation but also for braiding her hair which helped her recover faster.
India shared her experience on Twitter, saying that at first, she thought Black nurses did her braids. But when she came back weeks later for her post-operative appointment, she found out that it was done by the surgeon, a Black man who has 3 young daughters.
“I almost cried,” she added on the now-viral tweet that has over 586,000 likes.
It started when Marshall was searching for a surgeon to remove benign bone growths on her skull, called osteomas. It was difficult for her to find the right doctor until she finally bumped into Greywoode.
Marshall said Greywoode, an ENT doctor who specializes in cosmetic and functional facial plastic surgery, made her feel comfortable with his approach. She said he was the only doctor who thought of a way to do the surgery with fewer scars, hair loss, and numbness.
Marshall was also concerned about her “large” curly hair, thinking it could get in the way during the operation. So she was surprised after the surgery when she realized that her hair was in neat braids, making it easier for her to clean her wounds and faster for her to recover.
“That was emotional… It’s a simple gesture, but my hair… is important and it’s a lot of work as well. We know the work it takes to put braids in, so that simple gesture of him showing that my hair is important and him wanting to preserve it in a way that would be beneficial to me … it was really special,” Marshall told Yahoo News.
Meanwhile, Marshall’s story opened another discussion about how important Black representation is in the medical field.