I have focused on decreasing disparities and achieving racial, ethnic and income equity for decades, beginning in medical school during the early 90’s. I created a learning series for my fellow medical students, advocated for changes to school policies, educated incoming attendings about the importance of using cultural humility and other tools (including staff diversification) to decrease health disparities. Ultimately in my last year, the school created a Dean of Multiculturalism, a position which remains to this day. Such work continued through residency and ultimately, I landed a job with an FQHC providing bilingual health services to under and uninsured patients. Our patients came from so many different backgrounds; our job was to be humble, listen and create culturally effective services that created equitable outcomes. Funding rarely supported such efforts and seemed to purposefully pit one group against another in search of limited resources. This frustration led me to pursue an MPH in Health Policy and Management as part of a Minority Health Policy Fellowship; I researched and identified legislative ways to decrease health disparities. Upon graduation I worked on the Hill for Senator Sarbanes; Maryland is quite diverse with large rural areas. I regularly visited and listened to diverse constituents across the state and recognized that the rural eastern shore was different form the rural Western Maryland and the diversity within each required different policies if we sought to create effective and equitable outcomes and health and social outcomes. After serving as Deputy Commissioner of Baltimore, I moved to Open Society Foundation, first as a local Baltimore program officer and then as the National Drug Addiction Treatment and Harm Reduction Director post-ACA passage. I used grant making, convening, education and advocacy tools to support grantees working to create access to a full continuum of substance use services, but also who fought the racist underpinnings of the drug war and health systems to eliminate egregious disparities within justice and health outcomes. This work requires an understanding of facts, the ability to work with and read diverse people, sensitivity around how and when to push partners beyond their comfort zone and when they need a rest; without which movement is simply not possible. All of which are valuable skills to bring to a project of this nature.
