With my UDAR colleagues Jay Budner and Jennifer Schmidt, we formed a DEIA+ leadership team in 2019, that is a working group of 60 members, and currently has produced three employee-led subgroups (Allyship, BIPOC, Fundraising for Diversity). Through these activities we are uniting as a community, growing and learning together towards creating a more culturally aware, inclusive and diverse UDAR, where authenticity is welcomed and encouraged. The advocacy, partnership, and sponsorship I have received from my colleagues who recognize their privilege, coupled with my willingness to be vulnerable and use my voice for change, has turned my passion into a paid position in the DEI space at UCSF. It’s truly a beautiful thing.

My DEI/AR co-chairs at BCH, Marsha Treadwell and Brandie Hollinger, have been my mentors in this space. Representation matters, and I no longer put limitations on what we can accomplish together.  Special note of gratitude to Renee Navarro and Alejandra Rincon, and many others for their tireless efforts in creating a foundation within our university for DEI as well.

What is your personal story? How did you get here?

My family is currently mostly made up of black women now; for various reasons the men in our family have passed away due to health reasons, or sadly, have been killed by gun fire. So, to me, black women represent resilience, strength, perseverance, wisdom, beauty, and unconditional love. The women in my family have all overcome historical tragedies and generational atrocities in some form to become the women that they are today. The men in my family, past and present are pillars of strength and support, wisdom and vision. We all have wounds but we don’t display them. We have all had sorrow but we find a smile when needed, mostly for you, and not for us. 

Please give some reflections on being an African American woman and what aspects of your heritage you are most passionate about? 

The aspects of my heritage that I am most passionate about are our continued strength; our ability to visualize and create, and to communicate and plan anything we set our minds to; our ability to unify and find joy in any situation; and our amazing energy and bright light that many have spent a lifetime trying to dim. I am passionate about doing what I can to encourage and uplift us in all things—past, present and future.

Given the expression "Give them flowers while they are living"…Who would you give flowers to and why? 

I would and do give my flowers to several women in my family: my mom Frances for her resilience; my sister Melissa, who is the supporting pillar of our family; to my 19 year daughter Bless, who has so much compassion for others; to my favorite cousin Lisa, who will give you a hug that sucks the wind out of you, tell you the honest truth when you need, and will always have your back no questioned asked; to my stylish auntie Karen, just because; to my amazing grandmother, Olive Claire, just passed away last year at 96, and whom I learned so many inspiring things about at her funeral, rather than when she was alive. Such a humble woman for strength and commitment.

These women all embody tremendous beauty, intellect, wisdom, and strength in some shape or form. I love them with every fiber of my being, I gain my strength and courage from them all, and am deeply blessed to call them my family.

Meet Chidiebere Ide - the medical student bringing Black illustrations to the medical field

Have you ever seen a medical illustration featuring a Black woman's womb? Chidiebere Ibe, 25, is behind the image. The Nigerian medical student, at Kyiv Medical University in Ukraine, describes himself as a self-taught medical illustrator. He began publishing the images on social media, showing conditions like empyema thoracis and seborrheic eczema on Black skin. Many of the images show skin conditions prevalent with Black people, combating a misrepresentation that often leads to misdiagnosis.

The lack of Black representation in medical journals and textbooks is no secret, though. A January study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that just 4.5 percent of images in general medicine textbooks show dark skin.

• Youtube interview: Why I am making Black medical drawings, SaharaTV, Dec 12, 2021
• Meet the student bringing Black illustrations to the medical field - NBC News, Dec 10, 2021
• The creator of the viral Black fetus image will have his illustrations published in a book - CNN, Jan 18, 2022

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  Meet Joel Bervell, Tiktok's medical myth buster, bringing racial disparities in medicine to light

  The Ghanian-American 26-year-old earned an impressive amount of academic honor as a third-year medical student at Washington State University, founded and led multiple mentorship groups to empower underrepresented students and mastered a sort of warmth that’s rare in medical professionals.

  His video series “Racial Biases in Medicine” not only educates his followers on damaging prejudices that can seriously harm people of color, but it is leading to real change.“People don’t realize [racial biases] begin way before you get to the doctor. It starts when [future doctors] are in medical school and the way [they] are trained to think about different issues,” he said.

  His goal is to revolutionize the way medicine is being taught, through his social media presence and his medical career, so that every unit addresses possible racial disparities.

• Unpack racial biases in medicine with a myth-busting TikTokker - Mashable, Nov 4, 2021
• Joel Bervell, TikTok's medical myth buster, brings racial dispariteis in medicine to light - In the Know
• http://joelbervell.com/

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  Meet Malone Mukwende, who's published a book to answer "What will will it look like on darker skin?"

  When Malone Mukwende, 21, started medical school in London, he identified a fundamental problem: almost all the images and data used in its teaching were based on studies of white patients. But medical symptoms can present very differently on Black and brown skin, leading to misdiagnosis, suffering and even death. Still a student, he has recently launched both a handbook, Mind the Gap, and Hutano, a new online platform intended to empower people with knowledge about their health.

  A handbook like this is necessary because at the moment in medical education in the U.K., and also around the world, we are often not taught how to identify signs and symptoms in darker skin. So this handbook almost acts as that bridge to fill in that gap in our education at the moment. 

• Medical student creates handbook for diagnosing conditions in Black and brown skin - CBC Radio, July 21, 2021
• Malone Mukwenda - Talks at Google, May 19, 2021
• Mind the Gap: A handbook of clinical signs in Black and Brown skin.
• Download for FREE HERE.