Twin Philly doctors make equity in health part of their practices

PHILADELPHIA — Drs. Elana Mcdonald and Delana Wardlaw are identical twins who inherited their parents’ belief in the power of education. They also learned well their mother’s lessons about standing up for yourself, for what you believe in and for the people you love.

A year ago, they launched Twinsisterdocs — accessible at Thetwinsisterdocs.com and on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram — to further the goals that have fueled their activism for the past 20 years.

“Twinsisterdocs was created to promote health, wellness, self-advocacy and address health disparities in underserved communities,” said Wardlaw.

They do this through what they call the three T’s: trust, translate and transform.

“As trusted messengers,” Wardlaw said, “we provide culturally sensitive, accurate medical information, which translates into patients becoming active participants in their health care, and it leads to transformational outcomes.” That includes transformation for their communities as well as the individual patients themselves.

In the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, the 46-yearold sisters joined with the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium

‘The conditions, the lack of access to proper health care, the economic inequalities — the coronavirus just magnified all of this to the 100th degree.’

Dr. Elana Mcdonald

to fight barriers to virus testing by bringing it to people in Black and Latino communities who were having difficulty accessing it. They’ve since refocused their efforts on educating people about the virus and the vaccine and addressing vaccine hesitancy.

They believe that improving cultural competency in the medical field could help lessen health care disparities that have contributed to high rates of chronic illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and kidney disease — all of which disproportionately affect Black Americans. Those chronic conditions have also made Black people more vulnerable to complications and, in some cases, even death from the coronavirus.

“This pandemic shined light on something that’s been happening for 100 years,” Mcdonald said. “The conditions, the lack of access to proper health care, the economic inequalities — the coronavirus just magnified all of this to the 100th degree.”

STEVEN M. FALK/ PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Dr. Delana Wardlaw (left) and Dr. Elana Mcdonald, both 46, are twins who grew up in North Philadelphia. They have separate practices in Philly dedicated to serving underserved people and encouraging them to be empowered health consumers.