Executive Thought Leadership
Stanford School of Medicine Dean Lloyd Minor needed an introductory speech that not only warmly welcomed a visiting scholar but also linked the scholar’s work to Stanford Medicine’s mission.
Hannah Valantine, MD, is the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s first Chief Officer of Scientific Workforce Diversity.
Lloyd Minor, MD, is dean of the Stanford School of Medicine.
Hannah Valantine, MD, who is Chief Officer of Scientific Workforce Diversity at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), visited the Stanford campus as part of a lecture series on diversity in medicine. I wrote the introductory remarks that Stanford Medicine Dean Lloyd Minor gave to introduce Dr. Valantine.
I incorporated recent studies about the lack of minority representation in medicine, explaining that this harmed not only workforce equality but also data integrity. I connected these messages with Dean Minor’s Precision Health vision.
When Dean Minor finished his introduction, Dr. Valantine thanked him and commented that he’d touched on many topics that she would be speaking about.
The following are excerpts from the speech:
“Illyasha Peete lay next to her young son, listening to his labored breaths and fearing they would stop. As a single mother of an asthmatic son in Memphis, Tennessee, she struggled to make ends meet so that her son could get treatments…None of these treatments worked for her son. And the reason may be that they were tailored to a different race…
Illyasha and her son are African American. But the majority of studies conducted about asthma – and most other health conditions – involve patients of European descent. [Dr. Valantine] and I share the same attitude about diversity and inclusion. To both of us, diversity and inclusion are the only ways we as medical professionals can fully do our jobs and make good on our Hippocratic oath to provide comprehensive care for all people….As physicians responsible for the physical and psychological healing of the world’s communities, we must commit ourselves to improving the broader social, economic, and environmental conditions that can be severe burdens for patients from all walks of life.
Moreover, a lack of diversity and inclusion impacts the clarity and accuracy of our data. For instance, if we do not gather a diverse set of data from ethnicities and lifestyles around the world, we cannot recommend personalized, proactive, and preventive treatments. Without diversity, we cannot fulfill our promise to deliver Precision Health.
Ultimately, if we are narrow-minded and waver in our commitment to diversity and inclusion, patients like Illyasha’s son will be at greater risk. And they will continue to suffer.”