A young Black man arrives in the emergency room, doubled over in pain from a sickle cell crisis. “It’s an act,” says the attending physician dismissively. “I think he just wants drugs.” The attending refuses to prescribe the opioids he might give to a white patient in similar straits. Andrea Reid, MD ’88, associate dean for student and multicultural affairs for the  Program in Medical Education and director of the Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs at Harvard Medical School, witnessed too many such scenes as a trainee in Boston-area hospitals in the 1980s and ’90s.

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MD students’ telehealth initiative provides pandemic support: The severe pain and lengthy hospital stay could have been avoided, said Angela, an undocumented immigrant from Colombia, if only the application she had submitted to receive Charity Care in New Jersey two months earlier had been approved, or if just one of the nearly 70 follow-up calls she made had been returned.

For Andrea Reid, the outpouring of interest in Harvard Medical School’s effort to combat racism has been affirming and heartening—scores of faculty and students have raised their hands to say, “I’m ready to help.”

LaShyra Nolen has packed a lot into her first 15 months as a medical student. Elected president of her Harvard Medical School (HMS) Class of 2023, which by Harvard tradition also meant she presided over the Student Council as a first-year student, Nolen became the first Black woman on record to hold the position.

Early in my medical school career, before I became accustomed to the marble buildings and grandiose paintings of physicians on the walls, I attended the unveiling of a new portrait. Depicting William Hinton, a Black physician known for groundbreaking work in syphilis treatment, the addition garnered attention from faculty and students alike. We stood in the large room, surrounded by portraits of mostly White physicians, as Hinton’s image was revealed.