Our Office of Diversity & Inclusion is committed to building an environment where all students, faculty, and staff from varying backgrounds and life experiences feel belonging, engaged, and productive. The Multicultural Resource Center and the IDEALS office help us further this commitment.
As an academic medical center, it is our responsibility to train and mentor future clinicians and scientists who reflect, understand and appreciate diversity. We live in an aging and diversifying nation where disparities can limit healthcare access and lead to disproportionately poor outcomes. Addressing health disparities, improving community health, and leading efforts to eliminate health inequalities are essential to the School of Medicine and Duke Health's mission. The Duke University School of Medicine works to attract and retain a diverse cadre of outstanding talent who positively impact how we teach, and learn and serve in an increasingly diverse world.
Student Resources
- Wellness Resources & Support Services: All students in the Duke University School of Medicine have access to a number of well-being, mental, physical and mindful services and resources. Find help or learn more about how to reach out.
- Reporting Mistreatment & Misconduct: Students are encouraged to report mistreatment that occurs in their courses and in their clinical education.
- Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) works to achieve and deliver a culturally competent medical education.
Recent News
Transgender Mental Health Care on the Transition Pathway
In honor of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, we talked with three experts in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences to learn more about how they support gender diverse patients at Duke. Meet our experts:
School Students, Staff, and Faculty receive 2021 Michelle Winn Inclusive Excellence Awards
The Duke University School of Medicine has announced the recipients of the 2021 Michelle P. Winn Awards, which recognize exceptional achievement within the field of diversity and inclusion. This year’s recipients are Maureen Cullins, Jacqueline Barnett, DHSc, MSHS, PA-C, Marcus Taylor, and the team of Gabriela Maradiaga Panayotti, MD, and Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, MD.
A First at Duke
Only around 6% of practicing ophthalmologists are minorities, and only 3% of ophthalmologists are Black. As part of Duke Health’s broader Moments to Movement anti-racism initiative, leaders at Duke Eye Center like Herndon are working to continually improve these statistics through initiatives to recruit and mentor medical students and residents from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds and fight against racism and discrimination in their everyday work.
Duke medical student wins inaugural pitch competition for Black student founders
Concrete steps to diversify the scientific workforce
New CTSI core dedicated to equity in research
As the COVID-19 pandemic and racial reckoning unfolded side-by-side during the summer of 2020, a common thread emerged that prompted an intentional shift at the Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA).
“Although equity is something that Duke CTSA has always been interested in, during the summer of 2020, a more organized initiative to integrate equity throughout CTSI and CTSA was deemed necessary,” said Keisha Bentley-Edwards, PhD, a Duke developmental psychologist and member of CTSI.
Duke CTSI launches new center dedicated to equity in research
Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute is launching the Center for Equity in Research to promote equity, anti-racism, and anti-bias in clinical and translational research. The new center is led by Nadine Barrett, PhD, Associate Director of Equity and Community and Stakeholder Strategy for CTSI.
Learn more about the Center for Equity in Research
The diversity problem in science
With COVID-19 being a fixture of our lives for nearly a year now, science has been a staple in the news. Along with science, though, a long-overdue conversation about the state of race relations in America has taken center stage, which makes diversity in science a critical topic to delve into. COVID-19 has highlighted not only a national crisis in healthcare response, but also longstanding health disparities across racial and socioeconomic groups that have only been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Nadine Barrett, Ph.D., to lead Duke project studying health concerns of local Black community
Duke University has been awarded a Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award to study the health concerns most important to the local Black community, particularly as they relate to COVID-19.
DCI researchers address health disparities in stomach and lung cancer
As the COVID-19 pandemic shines a light on health disparities, efforts to find new ways to reduce them get a boost.
Lung cancer is responsible for the greatest number of cancer deaths each year in the United States and in North Carolina, and African Americans carry a disproportionate share of this burden. African Americans are more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer and more likely to die from it, compared to White people.