Bus Tour for Diversity In Medicine to Stop at Five HBCUs

Conceived by former medical student leaders, Tour for Diversity in Medicine is a grassroots effort to educate, inspire, and cultivate future minority physicians. Current trends in racial and ethnic health care disparities are widely documented and a major focus of many recent federal and state health policy changes. One frequently discussed solution is the need to increase the number of minority physicians. The numbers of underrepresented minorities in medical schools (those racial and ethnic groups that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population) are alarming. TDM seeks to address this concern by using the experiences and advising of current minority physicians and medical students to help undergraduate students along the educational pipeline to medical school.

In February the Tour for Diversity in Medicine will visit the campuses of five historically Black universities in an attempt to encourage more minority students to consider careers in medicine and other healthcare fields. The five-stop bus tour will visit the campuses of Hampton University, Johnson C. Smith University, South Carolina State University, Tuskegee University, and Jackson State University.


Participating in the tour are 11 doctors, dentists, and medical school students. At each school visited, about 150 students will participate in a full-day program where they will learn how to succeed in pursuing a medical career.

Meet Our Co-Directors

Alden M. Landry, MD, MPH is an emergency medicine physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and is the founder of Hip Hop Health Inc.  He also holds other academic positions including Senior Faculty at the Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Faculty Assistant Director of the Office of Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership at Harvard Medical School. He received his BS from Prairie View A&M University in 2002, MD from the University of Alabama in 2006 and completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in 2009. In 2010, he earned an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy in 2010 as well. He was also awarded the Disparities Solutions Center/Aetna Fellow in Health Disparities award in 2010-2011. In addition to his clinical interests, Dr. Landry is involved in research on emergency department utilization trends, disparities in care and quality of care. He co-instructs two courses at Harvard School of Public Health and teaches cultural competency to residents. He works with numerous organizations to eliminate health disparities and increase diversity in the health care workforce. Dr Landry mentors students from high school to medical school encouraging careers in the health professions.
 

Kameron Leigh Matthews, MD, JD is an Attending Physician at Cermak Health Services of Cook County, the entity that provides health care to the 10,000 detainees of the Cook County Department of Corrections.  With a strong dedication to primary care services for the underserved, she is honored to have been awarded loan repayment through the National Health Service Corps for her current position.  Dr. Matthews received her Bachelor’s degree in Public Policy Studies from Duke University.  She earned her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University and her law degree at the University of Chicago.  She completed her residency in Family Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago while serving as Chief Resident during the 2009-2010 year.  Dr. Matthews served as a National President of the Student National Medical Association, the nation’s oldest and largest organization for underrepresented minority medical students, and currently serves on the organization’s Strategic Planning Council.  She currently serves as a Lead Analyst for Policy Prescriptions, an evidence-based health policy website.  Her career interests lie in patient behavior education, primary care promotion, medical workforce diversity and development, and the elimination of health care disparities.
 

http://tour4diversity.org/