EDI News & Op-Eds

In honor of National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month—also known now as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) Mental Health Month—Duke Psychiatry's Jane Gagliardi, MD, MHS, shares a brief summary of racism in mental health care and talks with Spencer Simon, a physician assistant who provides overnight psychiatric care in the Duke University Hospital Emergency Department, about his work in behavioral health.

The Duke School of Medicine's Office of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) spoke with EDI delegate Annise Weaver, MSEd, CRC, Manager of Education & Outreach of NC-PAL and Associate Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Weaver shared how last year’s COST letter from Black faculty inspired her to help her Black colleagues at Duke and how her role as Associate Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion complements her other duties within the department.

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, who joined the Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences faculty in September 2021, wants to help flip the script on how health care providers talk to and care for people in the LGBTQ+ community.

Over the past year, leaders from the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, Office for Institutional Equity, Faculty Advancement, and Disability Management have met with Duke students and team members from the university and health system to discuss how to better ​​​support inclusion and equity efforts related to neurodiversity across the Duke campus.

In an op-ed published on the North Carolina Psychiatric Association website, Duke internal medicine-psychiatry resident Colin Smith, MD, highlights the need for systemic changes to achieve racial health equity in psychiatry.

Peter McCann, MBBS, MSc, MRCPsych, a fifth-year internal medicine-psychiatry resident, and Rick Wolthusen, MD, MPP, a second-year psychiatry resident, have received this year’s James H. Carter, Sr. Community Service Award, established in honor of Carter’s dedication to serving the underserved. 

Duke's Office for Faculty Advancement has awarded seed grants to 13 faculty-led projects exploring new ideas and expanding existing initiatives to promote an equitable and inclusive academic environment at Duke. A Duke Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences team received funding for their "Leadership in the Lab" proposal.

In a New England Journal of Medicine "Points of View" piece, Duke Psychiatry's Damon Tweedy, MD, reflects on his medical training and shares his thoughts on what medical educators and administrators can do to resolve racial health inequity.

Annise Weaver, MSEd, CRC, director of clinical operations and associate director of diversity, equity and inclusion, has won the 2022 Samuel DuBois Cook Society Staff Award in recognition of her leadership in diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism at Duke.

The Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences is using a $50K gift to support pilot research projects focused on health disparities and work led by faculty members who are underrepresented in medicine, as well as other initiatives to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.