Magnify Magazine | Duke University School of Medicine

Man stands on steps outside NY apartment building

A Champion for Affirming, Culturally Responsive Health Care

June 22, 2022 By Susan Gallagher

Understanding intersecting cultural identities — and providing care that respects and affirms those identities — is at the heart of Tyson Pankey’s work as a clinician, educator, and researcher. Pankey joined the Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences faculty as an assistant professor in September 2021, and he wants to help flip the script on how health care providers talk to and care for people in the LGBTQ+ community.

portrait of woman standing infront of mural

Dissecting Disparities in Cancer Outcomes

When Tomi Akinyemiju, PhD, came from Nigeria to the United States — Michigan, to be precise — for college in 2001, the first thing she realized was that she had drastically underestimated the cold. “It was the first snowstorm of the winter,” she said. “I arrived in Michigan wearing a cute little hoodie, thinking I was all bundled up.” Her brother, who had been living in the state for a while, brought her a winter jacket.

Rashmi Saincher, MBBS in her white coat standing outside brick building

Training the 21st-Century Country Doctor

Growing up in a small town in the heart of South Carolina, Anthony Viera, MD, MPH, knew from an early age exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up: a country doctor. Bamberg, South Carolina, has a population just a little over 3,000, and those who aren’t related are at least acquainted.

Navigating the Promises and Perils of the Data Age

As the new chief research technology strategist for the School of Medicine, Eric Perakslis, PhD is helping the School navigate the promises and perils of the data age, a fast-arriving future that is full of both new possibilities and new perils.

P. Murali Doraiswamy sitting in a club chair on stage at a talk

A ‘Once in a Lifetime’ Opportunity to Improve Mental Health Care

P. Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS, FRCP, professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, doesn’t have to look far to see the toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on mental health, especially in the most vulnerable populations: in his Durham, North Carolina, research clinic, he works closely with adult and elderly patients suffering from anxiety, depression, and early dementia, many of whom have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic.