It was a case most gynecologists wouldn’t touch — literally.

Brionna Johnson of Chicago, who was 17 weeks pregnant, had a fibroid tumor on her uterus that weighed 27 pounds. One gynecologist after another told her the growth had to come out, but the only way of doing that meant removing her uterus and ending her pregnancy. 

Unwilling to lose both her child and her fertility, she traveled to Chicago’s gritty South Side for one more consultation. It was an appointment with Dr. Pierre Johnson — the self-described Fibroid Slayer. [Doctor and patient had never met.]

A Black OB-GYN and surgeon who practices at Loretto Hospital, a facility that primarily serves low-income patients, Johnson examined the woman’s distended abdomen and saw what others didn’t: a way to safely remove the giant fibroid without harming the fetus or removing her uterus.

And it worked: Johnson surgically removed the massive fibroid, and mother and fetus are doing just fine. Then, the doctor did something just as unusual in medicine’s buttoned-up culture: he posted about it on Instagram.

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