Celebrating Research, Education and Innovation Week at Children’s National Hospital
Children’s National Hospital held its 11th Annual Research, Education and Innovation Week, which showcased the scholarly achievements of faculty, staff and trainees across all disciplines and the roles they play in advancing medical science and providing the highest quality care to children.
The week-long event included poster presentations, guest lectures, educational workshops and panel discussions. Eight acclaimed speakers were invited to deliver keynote lectures, including, Wayne A. I. Frederick, M.D., M.B.A., FACS, president of Howard University, James W. Collins, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., associate director for the pediatric residency program at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Sally Allain, MSc, M.B.A., head of JLABS @ Washington D.C. The themes for both Dr. Frederick’s and Dr. James Collins’s presentations were centered on diversity, equity and inclusion.
The keynote lecture “The State of Diversity in the Medical Profession” delivered by Dr. Frederick gave a voice to three often sidelined matters. First, the ongoing need to ensure greater equity and accessibility of health care for communities of color. Second, the unconscious biases that continue to permeate the medical profession, making it difficult for minorities to receive the health care they need. Third, how Historically Black Colleges and Universities in general, and Howard University in particular, shoulder an immense burden in developing African American doctors who enter the medical profession in this country.
To Dr. Frederick, progress begins with awareness and education. “I want people to understand why diversity is important, what challenges prevent it and what can be done to promote it. I also want each individual to understand the role he or she may play in fostering greater diversity,” said Dr. Fredrick. “These are institutional problems, but individual people have the power to change their environment. We will need to advocate for and work to bring about greater diversity. The more people giving momentum to this initiative, the further progress we will make.”
Dr. Frederick further explained that there are many obstacles to diversity. “Becoming a doctor requires time, money and resources. Aspiring Black doctors often forgo a medical career because they don’t have the resources to afford the education nor the luxury to defer earning a livable salary,” said Dr. Frederick. “To achieve diversity in all fields, but especially in the medical profession, we need to support students and the institutions that train them so they can make professional decisions based on their future goals rather than their immediate needs.”
The “The Racial Disparity in Adverse Birth Outcome: Zip Code Eclipses Genetic Code,” keynote lecture from Dr. James Collins shed light on African American women’s ongoing exposure to early-life impoverishment, racial discrimination and parental low socioeconomic status associated with adverse birth outcome.
“Racial disparities in certain U.S. zip codes persists even though it is known to negatively affect birth outcomes because it fails to eliminate the early-life—and generational—consequences of neighborhoods experiencing poverty and lifetime exposure to racial discrimination,” said Dr. James Collins. “We must eliminate the social and economic inequities that are the root cause of the racial disparity in adverse birth outcome.”
Children’s National faculty were also recognized for their high-quality research during the event. Awards for the best poster presentations were distributed according to the following categories:
- Basic and Translational Research
- Clinical Research
- Community-Based Research
- Education, Training and Program Development
- Quality and Performance Improvement
The category winners conducted research on a variety of topics, including creating and applying telehealth innovation, developing educational intervention strategies, evaluating the impact of COVID-19 in the Washington Metropolitan area, using T-cell expansion for therapeutic use.
