By Lauren Sausser

Dr. Jonathan Jennings, a Roper St. Francis physician, said some of his black patients drive hours for their primary care appointments — from as far away as Georgia — just so they can see a black doctor.

“I had a lady today come from North Myrtle Beach,” Jennings said during a recent interview. “I have people that come from as far as Savannah. I have people that come from Moncks Corner, everywhere. They come and they drive past dozens of physicians because they want to be taken care of by a black doctor.”

Jennings, isn’t one of a kind, but, as a black doctor, he’s certainly part of a small minority. Fewer than 4 percent of all physicians in the United States are African-American.

That number is slightly higher in South Carolina, but a report published by the South Carolina Medicaid agency last year shows that the number of black physicians practicing medicine in this state is still very low.

“The demographics of the physician workforce in South Carolina do not reflect the racial composition of South Carolina’s population,” the report’s authors wrote.

In 2009, 5.8 percent of physicians in South Carolina identified as African-American, compared with nearly 29 percent of the state’s population.

“This is particularly concerning because research suggests that people from underrepresented groups generally prefer to see providers who share their racial and ethnic backgrounds,” the report said.

Dr. Thad Bell, an independent physician and the former director of diversity at MUSC, said this problem isn’t unique to South Carolina.

“It’s a problem we’re seeing throughout the entire nation, and it’s a problem that’s existed for the past 25 years,” Bell said.

The number of black physicians working alongside Jennings at Roper St. Francis may be particularly low, even compared to other hospitals in the state.

In a federal lawsuit filed against the hospital system last month, Jennings claims he is the only black physician currently employed at the Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant Hospital and that “fewer than seven” black physicians are employed by the hospital system’s 250-member physician practice.

In the lawsuit, Jennings alleges that Roper St. Francis has denied him adequate work space and consistently sabotaged his ability to practice medicine because he is black. Jennings said it’s clear hospital leaders favor white doctors because they hire so few black ones.

“I am the only minority physician in that entire hospital — period,” he said.

Roper St. Francis denied his allegations in a prepared statement provided by a hospital spokesman.

“Our preliminary investigation has found no evidence to support Dr. Jennings’ allegations. Roper St. Francis will not tolerate discrimination or retaliation, and we work hard to promote a culture that embraces diversity and inclusion.”

The lawsuit has been filed during a summer when race relations in South Carolina have taken center stage. A white man is accused of shooting a pastor and eight parishioners to death in a historically black Charleston church in June. The Confederate flag, a longtime fixture on the S.C. Statehouse grounds in Columbia, came down in July. Gov. Nikki Haley said she intends to facilitate a broader discussion about racism across the state this year.

The health care industry can’t be spared from the conversation, Bell said, but finding and hiring more black doctors will be fairly complicated.

“Let’s go back to the number of African-American doctors who finish medical school — it continues to be low,” he said. “It’s better than it was 10 years ago, but it’s nowhere close to being where it needs to be to satisfy the current number of African-Americans we have in our state.”

He said middle school teachers need to identify minority students in eighth grade who express an interest in math and science and then encourage them to pursue a career in those fields. That would increase the number of black students who apply to medical school and would help address the pipeline problem, Bell said.

“Our educational system has to be looked at,” he said. “Across the state, this is an issue.”

Jennings agreed that these problems aren’t confined to Roper St. Francis. He said he encountered racism among white colleagues as a student at UNC and as a medical resident at MUSC. For example, white friends at school would often make racist jokes in jest, he said.

Jennings wants to continue practicing medicine in Charleston, but said he felt compelled to file the lawsuit. “You can’t fight every battle. You become numb. You become used to ignoring it. I can’t say that was anything different when I got to Roper (St. Francis),” he said. “When I started becoming more conscious of it was when I realized that things were getting bad.”

In the complaint, Jennings contends that Roper St. Francis constantly shuffled him from one space to the next and never offered him a permanent office to see patients. It also alleges his patients weren’t prioritized on call-back lists and some of them were erroneously told that Jennings no longer worked at the hospital.

“I’ve been treated much better since this (lawsuit) has been filed,” he said.

Jennings has not specified the damages he is seeking in the complaint, but said he could make $200,000 more per year if the hospital system stopped thwarting his ability to treat patients. He would not disclose his current salary, but explained that he earns a salary and bonuses based on the number of patients he treats and the complexity of their cases.

Jennings continues to see patients at the hospital in Mount Pleasant.

Roper St. Francis has not filed a response to the lawsuit in court.

In a separate federal case, a former Roper St. Francis employee won a $650,000 verdict in December. The jury agreed she was retaliated against after she raised concerns about racial discrimination.