GDI Community Conversation - February 28

This session is designed to provide support and foster meaningful dialogue as we collectively strive to advance health equity for all individuals, including patients, students, faculty, and professional staff. 

During this listen-and-learn session, we will come together to align our efforts and explore strategies to advance health equity within our institutions and beyond. We welcome your questions and encourage individuals to showcase an activity they are performing that demonstrates an effective practice to advance health equity.

We encourage your active participation in this community conversation, where you will have the opportunity to engage in substantive discussions with members of the AAMC GDI Steering Committee and your peers. This event presents a unique opportunity to unite with colleagues from peer institutions, build coalitions, and offer mutual support.

Paloma F. Cariello, MD, MPH
Associate Dean Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases
University of Utah School of Medicine

Paloma F Cariello, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She is a clinical educator who graduated from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 2003 and obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Health from University of Massachusetts in 2013. Dr. Cariello’s clinical work is focused on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of transplant-related infections and immunocompromised hosts, with dedicated training and expertise in caring for that patient population. She believes team work is the best approach to patient care, with the patient being the key element of the team. Dr. Cariello is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. In addition to clinical work, she is highly dedicated to medical education.

In 2020, Dr. Cariello was appointed Associate Dean for Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. She embraces diversity as a core value and fundamental priority across the different fields in medicine, and believes the power of a diverse group allows for increased creativity and innovation, with unparalleled opportunities for growth. Dr. Cariello is a strong supporter and advisor for female medical students interested in leadership. During her free time, Dr. Cariello enjoys cooking, puzzles, hiking and outdoor activities.

Robert T. Maupin Jr., MD, FACOG
Associate Dean, Diversity & Community Engagement
Professor, Clinical Obstetrics & Gynecology
LSU Health New Orleans, School of Medicine

Dr. Maupin has been a member of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Division for over 20 years and holds appointments as Professor of Clinical Obstetrics & Gynecology, Endowed Warren C. Plauche' Professor of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the LSU Health Sciences Center and Associate Dean of Diversity & Community Engagement. He completed residency training in OB/GYN with LSU at Charity Hospital, and Maternal-Fetal Medicine fellowship at University Maryland Medical Center. Nationally, he has served as a consultant panel member of the US Public Health Service Perinatal HIV Guidelines Working Group, and has been a consultant for the CDC Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. He has served with the NIH funded national/international IMPAACT and Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group in clinical protocol development administration, and as a principal investigator with CDC sponsored clinical trials focused on perinatal HIV prevention. Regionally, he has previously served as the Maternity Program Medical Health for the Louisiana Office of Public Health Bureau of Family Health, and currently co-chairs the Louisiana Pregnancy Associated Mortality Review Committee. He has served on the Louisiana Perinatal Commission, and the Louisiana Office of Public Health STD Expert Advisory Panel, and is a Past President of the University Medical Center New Orleans medical staff. As a clinician, he specializes in advanced obstetric ultrasound imaging, prenatal diagnosis, perinatal management of medical co-morbidities and infectious diseases with a focus on perinatal HIV management. Since 2014, Dr. Maupin served in the School of Medicine as the Associate Dean of Diversity & Community Engagement. In this role he works closely with the schools Admissions and Student Affairs Divisions to advance quality institutional diversity programing, advance faculty development in cultural competency, and support pathways into the health professions for students from communities which are underrepresented in medicine.

Alden Landry, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Assistant Dean for the Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership
Associate Director and Advisor
Castle Society
Director of Health Equity Education
Harvard Medical School

Dr. Landry is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Assistant Dean for the Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership; Associate Director and Advisor for William B. Castle Society; and Director of Health Equity Education at Harvard Medical School. He also serves as Senior Faculty at the Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and is the founder and co-director of the non- profit organization Motivating Pathways. He leads efforts for the Department of Emergency Medicine, the hospital and the medical school to address health disparities and improve quality of care for the most disenfranchised.

Dr. Landry is involved in research on Emergency Department utilization trends, disparities in care and quality of care. He also co-instructs a course at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and teaches cultural competency to residents and physicians. Dr. Landry promotes careers in the health professions to under-represented minorities and mentors, scores of pre-medical students, medical students, residents, fellows and junior faculty. Dr. Landry also leads the Tour for Diversity in Medicine, an effort to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in medicine, dentistry, and other biomedical careers.

Dr. Landry has received numerous awards for his public health work and efforts to promote health care workforce diversity. He was recently awarded the Outstanding Academician Award by the Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine and the Albert Frechette Award from the Massachusetts Public Health Association. He has also received the Disparities Solutions Center/Aetna Fellow in Health Disparities award in 2010-2011.

David Acosta, MD
Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer
AAMC

David A. Acosta, MD, provides strategic vision and leadership for the AAMC’s diversity and inclusion activities across the medical education community and leads the association’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion unit.

Dr. Acosta, a family medicine physician, joined the AAMC from the University of California (UC), Davis, School of Medicine, where he served as senior associate dean for equity, diversity, and inclusion and as associate vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at UC Davis Health System. He previously served as the first chief diversity officer at the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine, where he established the Center for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and the Center for Cultural Proficiency in Medical Education.

Dr. Acosta earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Loyola University and his medical degree from the UC Irvine School of Medicine. He completed his residency training at Community Hospital of Sonoma County in Santa Rosa, California — an affiliate of the UC San Francisco School of Medicine — and a faculty development fellowship at the UW Department of Family Medicine.

Danielle Turnipseed, JD, MHSA, MPP
Chief Public Policy Officer
AAMC

As chief public policy officer, Danielle Turnipseed, JD, MHSA, MPP, leads the AAMC’s public policy and legislative advocacy efforts on issues affecting the health of people everywhere, particularly those involving the AAMC-member institutions’ missions of education, research, clinical care, and community collaborations. Turnipseed works with policymakers and other leaders to advance policy priorities that strengthen the health and well-being of the United States, including policies that affect health care delivery, research, medical education, and health equity.

Turnipseed brings over 20 years of health care policy experience to the AAMC. She previously worked in the division of federal affairs at the American Medical Association, collaborating with key government agencies to advocate for critical issues impacting physicians and the nation’s health care system, including Medicare payment, health care quality, the nation’s response to COVID-19, and health equity. A former health policy advisor to two U.S. senators, Turnipseed is a thought leader on important health topics, including value-based care, population health, supplemental benefits, and digital solutions.

She has worked for America’s Health Insurance Plans, where she managed a multimillion-dollar grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention targeting diabetes prevention, and she also worked for the National Academy of Medicine as a program officer. Turnipseed’s work with stakeholders and health coalitions has included the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. She has worked on health policy and prevention efforts with an emphasis on health disparities, social determinants of health, chronic conditions, and federal programs. She has provided industry analysis and insight for key stakeholders and has been instrumental in developing state Medicaid policies for preventive services.

Sheryl Heron, MD, MPH, FACEP
Associate Dean, Community Engagement, Equity & Inclusion
Associate Director for Education & Training
Emory University School of Medicine

Dr. Sheryl Heron is a Professor and Vice-Chair of Faculty Equity, Engagement and Empowerment in the Department of Emergency Medicine, Associate Dean for Community Engagement, Equity and Inclusion, and Associate Director of Education and Training for the Injury Prevention Research Center at Emory (IPRCE) at Emory University School of Medicine.  She is a Past Chair of the Emergency Medicine Section of the National Medical Association. She has received numerous awards including the Partnership against Domestic Violence’s HOPE Award, the Woman in Medicine Award from the Council of Concerned Women of the National Medical Association, the Gender Justice Award from the Commission on Family Violence and was named a Hero of Emergency Medicine by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP).

In 2012, she was named the inaugural President of the Academy for Diversity & Inclusion in Emergency Medicine (ADIEM) of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and is currently on ACEP's Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity task force.  She is an editor of the first textbook in Emergency Medicine on Diversity and Inclusion in Quality Patient Care (2016) and the recently published 2nd edition, Diversity and Inclusion in Quality Patient Care – Your Story/Our Story (2019). From her work, she was awarded both the Emory School of Medicine’s inaugural Excellence in Diversity and Award and the Wes Curry Executive Leadership Award in 2018.  Dr. Heron has lectured extensively on Wellness & Well-Being in medicine, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Medicine as well as the medical response to Intimate Partner Violence.