I exist in parallel universes. In one, I am a medical student and campus leader. In the other, I am a member of a systemically oppressive society and steward of my ancestors’ sacrifices. In both, I exist as a Black woman — and sometimes that identity makes these two universes clash.

The Harvard College Charter of 1650 established the Harvard Corporation and outlined how the College, and later the University, were to be governed.  It committed the school to "the education of the English and Indian youth of this country." 

When Victor Lopez-Carmen graduates from Harvard Medical School, he’ll be one of only about 3,500 Native American physicians. This relatively small number means that Native Americans often can’t get representative care: For every 100,000 Native people in the United States, there are only 65 physicians of the same background.

Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley has approved a recommendation from a Faculty Council Subcommittee on Artwork and Cultural Representations task force to rename the Oliver Wendell Holmes academic society in honor of the late William Augustus Hinton, MD 1912, an HMS clinical professor of bacteriology and immunology. Read the full article by M.R.F. Buckley.  Read more about Winds of Change

Applying to medical school is an undeniably complicated process, but Azan Virji discovered that it’s even tougher when you’re an international student.

Despite coronavirus challenges, 3 HMS summer programs innovate, inspire:

“Way back in March, we knew things were going to be very different. It was clear COVID was going to impact everything in some way,” said Christopher De La Cerda, recruitment and student life manager in the Harvard Medical School Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs (ORMA) and coordinator of the Poussaint Prematriculation Summer Program (PPSP).

“Your journey here begins in extraordinary times,” said Dean George Q. Daley, acknowledging the uncertainty, and even anxiety, that this year’s incoming Harvard medical and dental students may be feeling as they begin their studies remotely this month, in the midst of a global pandemic.

Daley’s remarks came during the dean’s welcoming address to members of the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine Class of 2024 on Aug. 3. Gathering via teleconference, they were joined by fellow classmates located all around the...

Read more about Like No Other

Thirty-two years after earning her MD from Harvard Medical School, Andrea Reid, MD ’88, MPH ’01, has returned as the new associate dean for student and multicultural affairs in the Program in Medical Education. She will also serve as director of the Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs, succeeding Alvin Poussaint, who established ORMA and led it for 50 years, until his retirement in June 2019.

Moving through the world as a black woman, I am accustomed to not being represented as “the norm.” Everything from the hue of the Band-Aids that cover my wounds to the heroes in the movies I watch makes me acutely aware of my deviation from what is typical and expected: I am black and female, whereas the world represented around me is often white and male. For me and for many members of minority groups in the United States, this realization does not come as an epiphany but is instead an essential fact that we must come to understand to navigate the world in which we live. It was not until I... Read more about Medical Education Is Missing the Bull’s-eye

Last week we found ourselves sharing yet again — first with anger, then with despair — the story and horrific images of another black life being stolen by police brutality.

We tried to focus on our routine activities, like preparing coffee to help us get through another day in the hospital. Our hearts were heavy, our minds racing.