EDI News

The Duke Physician Assistant Program’s incoming class contains the highest percentage of underrepresented minorities the program has accepted in more than a decade.

The Class of 2020 will include 10 African-American students, 14 Hispanic students and one Native American student — approximately 28 percent of the 90 students accepted. The Duke PA program has averaged an acceptance rate of 18 percent underrepresented minorities for the past 10 years.

Goodbye 2017, hello 2018! Phyllis Perry, 63, was one of the last participants in 2017 to enroll in and complete her initial onsite visit for the Project Baseline study. Phyllis heard about the study at a senior center in Durham and enrolled at the Duke University School of Medicine.

The Project Baseline study is the first initiative of Project Baseline, an ambitious effort to develop a well-defined “baseline” of human health, and a rich data platform to help researchers better understand health and disease and the transitions between them.

Faculty and staff members honored for making health care more efficient, diverse

The members of Duke’s faculty and staff honored at Tuesday’s Teamwork and Diversity Awards have all played a role in making health care – both at Duke and beyond – more diverse and efficient.

Dr. Kenyon Railey

Assistant professor within the Department of Community and Medicine and assistant chief diversity officer in the School of Medicine Office of Diversity & Inclusion. A man of many trades, Railey also sees patients as a family physician at the Duke Family Medical Center.

Years at Duke: Nine

Through a recently awarded K12 grant, the Department of Population Health Sciences will train Dissemination and Implementation (D&I) scholars to use rigorous qualitative and quantitative methods that will impact cardiovascular health outcomes. The program will be spearheaded by its Program Director, Hayden B. Bosworth, PhD, and Associate Director, Ebony Boulware, MD, PhD.

Dear Colleagues, 

Damon Tweedy, MD, has been named the Solomon Carter Fuller Award recipient for his pioneering work in addressing disparities in the medical profession. Dr. Tweedy, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine, is a New York Times bestselling author of the book Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine. Dr.

Several research universities are leveraging targeted programs and data analysis to improve the representation and achievement levels of minority, low-income and first-generation college students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to three researchers who presented results at the 2017 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston.

Physician-scientist Kafui Dzirasa, MD, PhD, is featured in a new video as part of the “Black Men in White Coats” video series. Dzirasa, who earned his Ph.D. and M.D. from Duke, is an assistant professor in the departments of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and neurobiology and a member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. He was among 106 researchers in 2016 to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from former President Barack Obama.

From breathing new life into the West Union to starting a departmental blog about diversity and inclusion, Duke employees are being recognized for their teamwork and diversity efforts over the past year.

Two of Duke’s highest honors, the Teamwork and Diversity awards, are presented every year to employees who foster collaboration, cooperation and open communication as a team or demonstrate a respect and value for differing backgrounds and points of view.