Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility

As a daughter of immigrant parents in the United States, I have personally witnessed challenges that minorities encounter in our community. During my residency and fellowship training, I had the opportunity to directly care for patients from both inner-city population, underrepresented minorities, as well as men and women of different gender and sexual orientations. I have also been dedicated to the recruitment and mentorship of diverse faculty and medical staff, provide a welcoming environment robust with kindness and empathy for both patients and colleague and cultivate an appealing environment for people for different cultural backgrounds to work together.

More recently, as medical director of the Inherited Cardiomyopathy Program at Boston Medical Center, the largest safety net hospital in New England where I serve an underrepresented minority population, my current research aims to bridge gaps in access to healthcare. Recent studies have identified a need for a clinical care model that provides comprehensive care for patients and their families. More specifically, Black and other racial/ethnic minority patients with inherited cardiomyopathies are underrepresented in cardiovascular genetics clinics, experience inequities in care with less access to genetic testing and septal reduction therapies, and overall, have a higher burden of disease in part due to underdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis. In collaboration with data scientists, I am currently working on building machine learning algorithms to help improve detection of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with a goal to implement in a community-based setting. This would help improve timely diagnosis and early referral for medical, device and surgical therapies. I am also examining genetic risk and clinical outcomes in a larger, more diverse cohort of patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Understanding genetic risk will provide better insight into underlying disease pathophysiology, which may help identify patients with early onset disease and develop new tools to assess risk stratification. Further, this information would direct new areas of investigation, including developing therapeutics for more precision-based medicine in a largely underrepresented population.

In conclusion, I firmly believe that our education should strive to uphold diversity and encourage a more inclusive approach for people of all genders, races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds with a wider mission to eliminate healthcare disparities by treating all patients with compassion and dignity. With the help of academic medicine, I will continue to educate others to embrace such endeavors that help, protect and support communities everywhere.

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