Detroit doctor’s research into prostate cancer saves lives

DETROIT – At the age of 80, Dr. Issac Powell should retire, instead, he still works and performs operations every day.

Powell, a physician in urological oncology at the Karmanos Cancer Institute, specializes in prostate cancer. He and his team believe they have discovered a set of cancer genes that express differently in black men, meaning there is racial disparity in prostate cancer when it comes to screening, prognosis and mortality. Powell said it also makes the cancer more aggressive in black men.

Local 4 profiles Dr. Powell for Black History Month as a change agent in our community. He shared with us his successes in his field and the challenges he faced in becoming a doctor, including systemic racism, something he has dealt with most of his life.

LAKE: Black History Month Stories

Powell grew up in Gary, Indiana and always knew he wanted to study medicine.

When he started at the University of Michigan in 1958, he realized that the racism he had experienced during his high school years left him unprepared.

“When I got to Michigan I realized I wasn’t as well prepared as my classmates because of my background and in high school, I went to a school that had just been integrated and they were not interested in teaching black kids. I was never allowed to take the preparatory class. My chemistry teacher, although I had the highest score on my national chemistry exams, even suggested I get a job in the steel mill because he didn’t think I would graduate in college. So that was a devastating blow and that was my first actual, my first case of exposure to racism, ”Powell said.

Despite this overt racism and explicit bias, he persisted. With fair housing laws not yet in place, even finding a place to live during his Ann Arbor years was a challenge.

“At the time, they could discriminate based on race, which is why they told you very honestly that we don’t rent to black people. They didn’t use words like that, they used different words at the time. So that was disturbing. In addition, there were professors who even told me that I could never get a grade higher than a C in his class. And the kind of exams were written exams, so it was subjectively graded so he could be sure that I wouldn’t get above a C based on the way exams are graded. So those are two experiences at the University of Michigan that I was very concerned about, Powell said.

Powell attended medical school and became a successful surgeon and a leader in prostate cancer research. In particular, how it affects black men compared to other ethnic groups. He has published more than 100 articles on the topic and studied for decades, but he is not getting the funding he needs to continue his research.

He believes one reason is the unconscious bias of the people chosen to review and approve funds.

“Whether or not you will be funded depends on who assesses your subsidy. And most of the big scholarships you know who is reviewing and there was never an African American scientist, African American scientists reviewing my scholarships except on one occasion and that’s because I insisted if I went this grant applications there pointed out an African-American reviewer, ”said Powell.

Powell would like to retire soon and spend more time with his family, especially his grandchildren, but he is concerned that there is no one to continue his work.

‘I hate to leave. I hate leaving my patients because I know they will get into situations, ”Powell said. “It is important that African Americans are treated by someone similar to them. They have more confidence in someone who looks like them. Unfortunately, they aren’t enough of us who look like our patients, so that’s another problem that’s difficult to solve. “

“I’m desperately trying to get someone to replace (me). That’s one of the reasons I’m trying to get an endowed chair, because at least that will be tempting for someone else to come along and do what I’m doing. , ”Powell said.

Ken Hines has been a patient and friend of Powell’s for over five decades. Powell was treating him for prostate cancer.

‘It has been unrelenting. He has been looking for more doctors to continue the research, given all the effort he has put into it, all the documentation and all the history he has, ”said Hines.

Local 4 asked Dr. Powell if he seems like a change agent:

“Well I think. I hope. I hope I save lives. That’s the most important thing I’ve ever wanted to do in medicine is save lives,” Powell said. “I’m a decision maker when it comes to prostate cancer and racial inequality, so in that regard, I think I’m changing the idea or ideas of the majority white health system, especially urology, in relation to African American cancers. . “

Powell has just received a presidential citation from the American Urological Association, which is a great honor in his field.

Dr. Powell was also profiled by Al Roker on NBC’s “Today” for Black History Month. Kimberly Gill and Roker recently spoke about the changemaker. You can watch the conversation in the video below.

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